Le Carre classic named top crime book

The U.K.-based Crime Writers' Association has named John Le Carré's classic 1963 novel The Spy Who Came In From The Cold the top crime book of the past 50 years.

The group named the veteran spy writer winner of its Dagger of Daggers prize at its annual Dagger Awards Luncheon in London Tuesday.

Le Carré is the pen name of former British Foreign Service agent David John Moore Cornwell.

The award was established to mark the association's Golden Jubilee year. The group's membership of professional writers was asked to vote for the past Dagger Award-winner they thought of as the "best of the best."

Though the 74-year-old author was not able to attend the luncheon ceremony, his publisher accepted the honour on his behalf.

"I was most touched by this unexpected award, all the more so because it comes with the accolade of my fellow writers," he said.

Others up for the inaugural prize were Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park, Anthony Price's Other Paths To Glory, Barbara Vine's A Fatal Inversion, Peter Lovesey's The False Inspector Dew and The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid.

"I am sorry that my excursions into a new novel prevent me from being present in person but I thank you all most warmly," Le Carré added. His next novel, entitled The Mission Song, is set to hit bookstores in September 2006.

The writers' group also presented its 2005 Gold Dagger Award to best-selling Icelandic writer Arnaldur Indridason for his latest, Silence of the Grave.

"I am speechless. I don't have a speech. I have only thanks," Indridason told the crowd of more than 300 gathered for the ceremony.

Other winners included best-selling Scottish writer Ian Rankin, who was awarded the group's Cartier Diamond Dagger for his lifetime achievement in crime writing.

The Crime Writers' Association is made up of more than 450 published crime authors from around the world and hands out its Dagger Awards each year to honour the best of the genre.