Thriller Awards 2021

About the Thriller Awards

Year is the ThrillerFest ceremony year; books were published the year before. Rows for 2009-2025 come from the ITW Past Nominees and Winners page; 2006-2008 are not on that page and come from Stop, You're Killing Me (SYKM). Every year and category was cross-checked against SYKM, and winners against Wikipedia. Kept book categories: Best Hardcover Novel (called Best Novel 2006-2009, Best Thriller of the Year on ITW's 2009 list), Best First Novel, Best Paperback Original Novel (Best Paperback Original 2006-2008, Best Original Paperback Novel 2010-2021), Best Young Adult Novel (2013-2025), Best E-Book Original Novel (2013-2024), and the 2025 splits Best Standalone Thriller Novel, Best Standalone Mystery Novel and Best Series Novel. No paperback category was given in 2009. Dropped Best Short Story, Best Audiobook, Best Screenplay and honorary awards (ThrillerMaster, Silver Bullet, True Thrill, Thriller Legend). Repairs where the ITW page is wrong or incomplete, cited to SYKM instead: 2011 paperback winner is The Cold Room (ITW flags Down Among the Dead Men; SYKM and Wikipedia agree on The Cold Room); 2014 first novel lists Montana by Gwen Florio (ITW shows The Axeman's Jazz under her name); 2016 hardcover lists Pretty Girls and Inspector of the Dead (ITW shows two 2017 finalists); 2020 hardcover adds Recursion; 2023 hardcover and first novel follow SYKM and File 770 because the ITW page's 2023 block is malformed and places The Fields under hardcover. 2009 first novel cites the 2022 archive.org copy of the ITW page, which still lists The Killer's Wife. 2022 Best Young Adult winner The Project is unmarked on ITW and taken from SYKM and Wikipedia. Titles are in title case from SYKM, with SYKM typos fixed from the ITW page.

Organization: International Thriller Writers. Years are award years, which can differ from publication years. Official site (opens in a new tab)