We Begin at the End

by Chris Whitaker

***Winner 2021 CWA Gold Dagger***

We Begin at the End won the UK’s most prominent mystery-writing award in 2021, the CWA Gold Dagger, so definitely deserves a mention. It’s perhaps more the story of a man (a cop called Walk) and the people he cares about than a whodunnit. The style is quite particular, a bit repetitive and won’t appeal to all. To take a typical paragraph: “Together they watched a trawler, The Sun Drift, Walk knew it, blue paint and rust, curved lines of steel and wire. It moved silent from where they were, no waves just the carve of its hull.”