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Murderers, motives, false trails - who will win the Swiss Crime Thriller Award 2025

Oliver Fischer
26.8.2025
Translation: machine translated

Body, murderer and investigator - murder weapon, motive and a few false leads. That's all you need for a good crime thriller. The best will be honoured in October.

«Who did it?» This simple question is enough to make crime novels the most popular fictional books on the Swiss book market. Crime novels and thrillers accounted for 60 per cent of total sales in 2024. This figure, broken down into subgenres, shows that regional crime novels were particularly popular. This category alone accounted for 30 per cent of books sold.

In view of this popularity, it is almost surprising that the Swiss Crime Fiction Prize is only being awarded for the third time this year. Recently, the Association for Swiss Crime Fiction announced the names of the nominated works and their authors for the 2025 Crime Fiction Prize.

Two juries have been set up.

Two juries from German- and French-speaking Switzerland have selected ten works each from all the works submitted and placed them on their nomination lists.

The 10 nominated German-language works

Tagliabue (German, Peter Beeli, 2023)
Fiction
CHF24.70

Tagliabue

German, Peter Beeli, 2023

Spiegelberg (German, Christof Gasser, 2024)
Fiction
−5%
CHF17.90 was CHF18.90

Spiegelberg

German, Christof Gasser, 2024

Falsche Freunde (German, Roger Count, 2024)
Fiction
CHF17.70

Falsche Freunde

German, Roger Count, 2024

Eiskalte Surselva (German, Regine Imholz, 2024)
Fiction
−10%
CHF15.– was CHF16.70

Eiskalte Surselva

German, Regine Imholz, 2024

Tod auf dem Napf (German, Monika Mansour, 2024)
Fiction
CHF14.90

Tod auf dem Napf

German, Monika Mansour, 2024

Die Lago Maggiore-Morde - Tod im Kamelienpark (German, Annemarie Regez, 2024)
Fiction
CHF15.–

Die Lago Maggiore-Morde - Tod im Kamelienpark

German, Annemarie Regez, 2024

Bellevue (German, Andreas Russenberger, 2024)
Fiction
CHF15.90

Bellevue

German, Andreas Russenberger, 2024

Schemen & Haft (German, Severin Schwendener, 2024)
Fiction
CHF27.–

Schemen & Haft

German, Severin Schwendener, 2024

Allmen und Herr Weynfeldt (German, Martin Suter, 2024)
Fiction
CHF24.90

Allmen und Herr Weynfeldt

German, Martin Suter, 2024

Müller und das letzte Gefecht (German, Raphael Zehnder, 2024)
Fiction
CHF15.90

Müller und das letzte Gefecht

German, Raphael Zehnder, 2024

The 10 nominated French-language works

La nuit montre le chemin (French, Beetschen Olivier, 2024)
Fiction
CHF32.90

La nuit montre le chemin

French, Beetschen Olivier, 2024

Passé sous silence (French, Bovard Jacques-Etienne, 2024)
Fiction
CHF38.90

Passé sous silence

French, Bovard Jacques-Etienne, 2024

Les extradées (French, Feuz Nicolas, 2024)
Fiction
CHF25.70

Les extradées

French, Feuz Nicolas, 2024

Mémoires assassines (French, Glassey Stéphanie, 2024)
Fiction
CHF30.90

Mémoires assassines

French, Glassey Stéphanie, 2024

Cruel : roman noir (French, Verdan Nicolas, 2023)
Fiction
CHF29.70

Cruel : roman noir

French, Verdan Nicolas, 2023

Of the nominated French-language books, we do not currently carry the following five works in our range:

  • Christophe Barraud, «La Tête hors de l'eau», Editions de la Rive
  • Gérald Brizon, «Une balle dans le bide», Cousu mouche
  • Hélène Reichhardt, «Glaces pillées», Montsalvens
  • Emmanuelle Robert, «Dormez-en Peilz», Slatkine
  • Alexandre Sadeghi, «Le sutra des damnés», Slatkine

The award ceremony for the 3rd Swiss Crime Fiction Prize will take place on 18 October as part of the Crime Fiction Festival in Bern.

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