The Temple Of Doom

Yep, Peter Temple (right) slid the CWA’s Duncan Lawrie Dagger into his entirely metaphorical scabbard for The Broken Shore, voted best crime novel of the year on Thursday night. There’s one in the eye for the bloody Poms, eh? In a doom-laden night for Irish crime writing, neither Declan Hughes or Brian McGilloway managed to get their hands on the New Blood Dagger, Gillian Flynn winning that award, and the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, for Sharp Objects, appropriately enough. Worst of all, though, was our belated discovery that our lame pun – y’know, Peter Temple writes the Jack Irish novels – is a non-runner given that Temple’s 'Irish' is actually pronounced 'I-reich'. Buggery … Mind you, we can now blame the man we stole the lame pun from, the one and only Mr After Dark, My Sweet …