Males in the frame as Gold Dagger shortlist revealed

From deception during a Russian winter to murder in rural Mississippi, suicide at a Kent mansion to a savage killing in Glasgow, the shortlist for the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger award for the best crime novel of the year spans both continents and modus operandi, although this year's field is notably male-dominated.

Already nominated for the Man Booker prize, AD Miller's Russia-set novel Snowdrops – a snowdrop is Moscow slang for "a corpse that lies buried or hidden in the winter snows, emerging only in the thaw" – has now been shortlisted for the Gold Dagger, alongside Tom Franklin's Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, in which two estranged friends from a small town in America's deep south must confront the disappearance of a girl more than 20 years ago. Judges called Snowdrops "a hypnotically seductive and compelling exploration of moral danger", while Franklin's novel is "a poignant suspense novel drenched in the languid atmosphere of small-town Mississippi", they said.

Denise Mina, meanwhile, is the only woman shortlisted for this year's award. Her "complex" The End of the Wasp Season sees the pregnant DS Alex Morrow discovering deadly links between the horrific murder of a young woman in Glasgow and the suicide of a millionaire banker in Kent, while Steve Hamilton's "beautifully-paced" The Lock Artist is the memoir of an elective mute with a talent for picking locks.

Hamilton is also up for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year, alongside SJ Watson's acclaimed debut Before I Go To Sleep, in which amnesiac Chrissie discovers her husband has been concealing things from her. Craig Smith's Cold Rain, about an English professor who discovers someone out to destroy him, and Michael Gruber's The Good Son, which sees a group captured by armed terrorists in Pakistan, complete the thriller prize line-up.

Lee Child, whose latest Jack Reacher novel 61 Hours won the Theakstons Old Peculier crime novel of the year prize in July, failed to make the running for either of the two prestigious awards, but has been shortlisted for the ITV3 People's Bestseller Dagger. Voted for by the public, the prize will see Child competing with David Baldacci, Mark Billingham, Peter James and Peter Robinson for the honour.

"To arrive at the shortlist for any award is inevitably a hard and very subjective task. But this year's Daggers shortlists really do represent a very broad cross-section of the highest talents in our beloved genre, and I'm personally feeling very thrilled – and deeply privileged – to have been selected amongst them," said James, novelist and chair of the CWA.

The winners of the awards will be announced on 7 October.

CWA Gold Dagger shortlist:

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Snowdrops by AD Miller
The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger shortlist:
Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson
Cold Rain by Craig Smith
The Good Son by Michael Gruber
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

CWA John Creasey (new blood) Dagger:
Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson
Kiss Me Quick by Danny Miller
The Dead Woman of Juárez by Sam Hawken
The Dogs of Rome by Conor Fitzgerald

ITV3 People's Bestseller Dagger:

The Sixth Man by David Baldacci
Worth Dying For by Lee Child
Good As Dead by Mark Billingham
Dead Man's Grip by Peter James
Before the Poison by Peter Robinson