Fifteen years, fifteen stories: 2025 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel longlist revealed.
A Māori sleuth trying to leave policing behind, a New York bartender with an entourage of dead girls, a colonial Wellington tale entwined with infamous Edinburgh body-snatchers, a gay investigator in Renaissance Florence, a probation officer whose beloved husband is sucked into the pit of internet disinformation, and a couple of bookselling former British coppers are among the diverse array of characters and stories named today on the longlist for the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel.
- RETURN TO BLOOD by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)
- THE HITCHHIKER by Gabriel Bergmoser (HarperCollins)
- A DIVINE FURY by DV Bishop (Macmillan)
- LEAVE THE GIRLS BEHIND by Jacqueline Bublitz (Allen & Unwin)
- WOMAN, MISSING by Sherryl Clark (HQ Fiction)
- HELL’S BELLS by Jill Johnson (Black & White)
- THE MIRES by Tina Makereti (Ultimo Press)
- A FLY UNDER THE RADAR by William McCartney
- HOME TRUTHS by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)
- 17 YEARS LATER by JP Pomare (Hachette)
- ŌKIWI BROWN by Cristina Sanders (The Cuba Press)
- A HOUSE BUILT ON SAND by Tina Shaw (Text Publishing)
- THE CALL by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)
- PREY by Vanda Symon (Orenda Books)
- THE BOOKSHOP DETECTIVES: DEAD GIRL GONE by Gareth & Louise Ward (Penguin)
You can shop the longlist with independent Aotearoa bookshops on BookHub!