Diamond Meets the EyePeter Lovesey on the inspiration for Diamond and the Eye. Some of my happiest reading has been in the private eye genre, hard-boiled American eyes like Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Lew Archer, Matt Scud...
The Dark Room, by Sam BlakeHare’s Landing, West Cork. A house full of mystery… Rachel Lambert leaves London afraid for her personal safety and determined to uncover the truth behind the sudden death of a homeless ma...
HISTORY: THE DEVIL’S SCRIPTURE by Jeff DawsonI lived, some years ago, on a Ladysmith Road. It joined another called Kimberley, thoroughfares of solid, red-brick terracing. Show me any British suburb, built c.1900, and I will give you streets nam...
Caught Doing the Bear, by Leslie ScaseIn this article I am going to express some of my personal views on the writer’s use of language in historical novels, both as an author and as a reader. By the use of language, I mean not just the wor...
Writing Forgotten Women by Saeida RouassIn 2015 I came across a Times newspaper article that detailed the crimes of the ‘Moorish Jack the Ripper’. The article was printed in 1906 and offered a gruesome description of a series of murders of...
Man as Monster and the Milgram Experiment by Bryony PearceI’ve always been intrigued by man-as-monster; equally frightened and fascinated by the idea that someone who could help an elderly neighbour with their shopping, let local kids play in their garden an...
The Adventures of Maud West by Susannah StapletonMaud West ran her detective agency in London for more than thirty years, having started sleuthing on behalf of society’s finest in 1905. Her exploits grabbed headlines throughout the world but, beneat...
Changing Genres by Leigh RussellWriters are wordsmiths. We spend our time playing with words, seeing how we can use them to communicate. But ideas as well as language inspire the books we write, and these ideas can pop up unbidden f...
Martina Cole Awarded the 2021 CWA Diamond DaggerMartina Cole is the recipient of the highest honour in British crime writing, the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Diamond Dagger. The long-reigning Queen of Crime Drama is a publishing powerhouse. Ma...
Mortmain Hall by Martin EdwardsA superb Golden Age mystery packed with twists, from the winner of the Diamond Dagger 2020 ENGLAND, 1930. Grieving widows are a familiar sight on London’s Necropolis Railway. So when an elegant...
Mr Dickens and Me, by J C BriggsClaire Tomalin observed that: ‘everyone finds their own version of Charles Dickens.’ Mine is Detective Dickens, the amateur sleuth who teams up with the Superintendent from Bow Street to investigate...
Why reviews are so important (although not for the reasons you might think), by Dougie BrimsonOver the last decade, it cannot have escaped your attention that ebooks have changed the world of publishing significantly. This is especially true for mid-list authors such as myself. No longer alway...
TRUTH GAMES by Caroline EnglandFamily is everything to Ellie Wilson. She tries hard to be the perfect mother, the perfect partner, the perfect daughter – but she can’t always seem to get it right. When an old friend from uni...
Dagger Winners Announced OnlineCWA Dagger Awards 2020 Winners Announced – Michael Robotham, Lou Berney, Trevor Wood, Casey Cep, and Abir Mukherjee win 2020 CWA Dagger awards. The winners of the 2020 CWA Daggers, which honour the ve...
Location, location, location by Candy DenmanWhen I was working on the long-running drama series, Heartbeat, we were often told that the biggest character we wrote for was the setting. How true that was. Whenever I tell people that I used to be...
Research – So Much More Than Just The Facts, by Jay FormanI did more research for No Return than I’ve ever had to do before for a book. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. What I didn’t know was how ignorant I was. The basic spark of an idea for the story was...
Battling with the Muse, by Diane M DicksonI believe in The Muse. I am one hundred per cent convinced that there is a magic force that guides artistic endeavour. For interest mine is female, taller than me with longer, curlier, blonder hair, f...
Author in Lockdown: Merryn AllinghamPlease tell us a little about yourself and the books you write. I currently write what might be called traditional crime. It’s historical—the Tremayne Mysteries Series is set in the 1950s—and I have a...
Thirty-One Bones, by Morgan CryWhen Daniella Coulstoun’s estranged mother Effie dies in Spain under suspicious circumstances, she feels it’s her duty to fly out for the funeral. On arrival, Daniella is confronted by a d...
We are Spartacus: the Publishing Industry and Race, by Vaseem KhanAs one of only a handful of non-white authors on the British crime fiction map, I thought it might be worthwhile spending a moment reflecting on the worldwide rebalancing touched off by the George Flo...
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