After a tough judging process by crime fiction experts from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, the Ngaio Marsh Award committee has revealed the longlist for the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel. The finalists for the 2019 Ngaios (across the Best Novel, Best First Novel, and Best Non-Fiction categories) will be announced on August 2, with the winners revealed at a special WORD Christchurch event on September 14.

Event founder, Craig Sisterson, noted one particularly interesting title in this year's competition:  "It’s surreal and strangely fitting that in our tenth season of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, and almost forty years after Dame Ngaio’s passing, our judges are considering a story that she began writing herself during the Second World War." He's referring to Money in the Morgue, a Inspector Alleyn mystery set during World War II that was left unfinished at the time of Marsh's death in 1982, which was recently completed by Stella Duffy.

Here's the Best Novel longlist for 2019 (HT to Craig Sisterson):

• NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU by Nikki Crutchley (Oak House Press)
• CASSIE CLARK: OUTLAW by Brian Falkner (OneTree House)
• THIS MORTAL BOY by Fiona Kidman (Penguin)
• MONEY IN THE MORGUE by Ngaio Marsh & Stella Duffy (HarperCollins)
• THE QUAKER by Liam McIlvanney (HarperCollins)
• CALL ME EVIE by JP Pomare (Hachette)
• THE STAKES by Ben Sanders (Allen & Unwin)
• MAKE A HARD FIST by Tina Shaw (OneTree House)
• THE VANISHING ACT by Jen Shieff (Mary Egan Publishing)
• RAIN FALL by Ella West (Allen & Unwin)