In 2018, Edwards won the CWA Dagger in the Library, which recognises “a body of work by a crime writer that users of libraries particularly admire”. He was a founder member of the Northern Chapter of the Crime Writers' Association and of the Murder Squad collective of crime writers. He became Vice Chair of the CWA in 2015, and became Chair of the CWA in 2017. In 2007, Edwards was appointed Archivist of the Crime Writers' Association, and in 2011 the CWA gave him a Red Herring Award in recognition of his services to the Association. In 2008, he was elected to membership of The Detection Club and in 2011 he was appointed its first archivist. Four years later in 2015 he became the eighth president of the Club, succeeding Simon Brett. He is the only person to have held the offices of President of the Detection Club and Chair of the CWA at the same time. He served as Chair of the CWA from January 2017 to April 2019, making him the longest-serving Chair since the CWA’s founder, John Creasey.