A ghostwriter just won the top honor in the recent Dagger awards. Crime Writers' Association chose Australian author Michael Robotham, who beat the king or horror fiction Stephen King and bestselling "Harry Potter" creator JK Rowling.

Robotham, notorious for his psychological crime novels that sold more than 6 million copies, was chosen for his novel "Life or Death." It was revealed last Tuesday night at a presentation in the Malmaison Hotel in London.

According to RTE, "Life or Death" circles around Audie, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for committing robbery that left four people dead. During the incident, seven million dollars went missing and it seems that he is the only one who knows where the stash can be found.

Audie decides to escape a day before they set him free to save someone else. That led to a wide manhunt with powerful personalities apart from the FBI and the police searching for the prisoner. This premise, as per the judges via RTE was "a compelling and fascinating book."

"When you start reading Life or Death, you'll want to stay curled up in an armchair with one of the best thrillers you'll read this year," they went on to say.

Rowling, who was shortlisted for her book "The Silkworm" that is written under her pseudo Robert Galbraith, sent out a "massive congratulations to my Little, Brown stablemate" on Twitter. King was also up for the award for "Mr. Mercedes."

Besides creating tales of a crime and mystery writing, Robotham wrote several autobiographies for celebrities such as singer Lulu, singer-songwriter and comedian Rolf Harris and musician Geri Halliwell.

According to The Guardian, he removed his memoir on Harris from his shelf because of the latter's conviction for sex offenses that left Robotham "betrayed." Nonetheless, his writing is more inclined towards his crime stories.

The chair of the Crime Writers' Association judges Len Tyler described (via The Guardian) the year as wonderful for the crime writing believes that "This has been a simply wonderful year for the crime fiction genre and our judges were incredibly impressed by the standard of the entries."

This year will indeed be extra special as CWA launched a new site for Dagger Reads where the readers, fans and even libraries can enjoy access to the reading resources and the shortlisted books and authors.

"Next year we're rolling this initiative out to encompass all our Daggers and give readers the chance to discover all our shortlisted books. It's a true celebration of the best work in the crime genre," Tyler said.