CRA Giveaway: Death Lies Beneath (DI Horton Series)The eighth marine mystery crime novel featuring DI Andy Horton When ex con, Daryl Woodley is found dead on the marshes bordering Langstone Harbour the Intelligence Directorate believe his murder is li...
Creating a likeable, interesting and complex main character, one the reader can have empathy with, one they want to trust, to feel his/her pain and disappointments, root for throughout the story is a...
Music to my Ears – A J WainesAs a new fiction writer, specialising in psychological thrillers, I’ve taken no creative writing courses, joined no writers’ groups and even managed to fail my ‘O’ level English Literature. Not...
Every known murder scene has a detective combing for clues. Every detective has a prime enemy – and it’s not always the criminal. For the detective, the first enemy is often the crime sc...
Call Time: Finn ClarkeThe Crime Writers’ Association has been running its Debut Dagger for over 15 years. The entry period for the 2014 Debut Dagger is now closed but this seemed like a good time to look back and hav...
Are crime writers psychopaths? Pauline Rowson The relationship between writers and their characters takes many forms. Some of my characters irritate me, others entertain, some make me feel cuddly and...
Why the crime genre is so popular Crime fiction is the bestselling genre and tops the most borrowed fiction books from public libraries in the UK. So what is it that makes crime fiction so popular? F...
A Price To Pay – the ideas behind the story For the last three weeks, I’ve been discussing where ideas for novels come from. Sometimes, they ambush you. You might be sitting at home, minding your own...
Featured Author Friday: Chris SimmsCut Adrift – the ideas behind the story My previous two posts looked at where ideas for novels come from. For some writers, a book is created when a very particular thought hits home: what if? This wa...
Click by Alison Joseph ‘You’d know if he was dead, though, wouldn’t you? Your own husband…..’ She stared into the black water. Around her the trees dripped with recent ra...
David Stuart Davies writes: Reading books is becoming a specialist activity no longer enjoyed by the general public, writer Ruth Rendell has warned. The crime novelist and peer said reading is no long...
Margery Allingham: mystery on Mersea IslandWhere do your ideas come from? Chris Simms says that he’s sometimes tempted to tell audiences that he downloads them from www.ideasfornovels.com. But however much authors may dislike bein...
Featured Author Friday: Chris SimmsOutside the White Lines – the ideas behind the story In last week’s post, I described how one question makes authors quake in their shoes: where do your ideas come from? Most writers – myself included...
Featured Author Friday: Chris SimmsThe question authors dread. They stare at me in silence, hands raised high. It’s the part of a talk when I feel like David Dimbleby on Question Time. Who should I point to? ‘OK, the dark-haired lady i...
Sitting in Soho with Simenon’s Son There are definite perks to being a writer of books on crime fiction. Such as invitations to a meal at discreet Soho House (situated, coincidentally, in Soho)...
Drugs, poisons and serious organised crime at CSI Portsmouth 2013Internationally acclaimed crime authors joined police and forensic experts and an audience of over a hundred and thirty at CSI Portsmouth 2013 at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in the Portsmout...
The International Author: D. A. MishaniBeing a crime novelist in a country where crime writing is scarce, I’m often asked why I have chosen to write crime novels of all things. After all, I could have written novels that don’t...
Chasing the elusive Lights, and Iceland NoirEarlier this year, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Ragnar Jónasson and I met over a curry and a beer, and it turned out we had had similar thoughts about Iceland’s lack of any kind of crime fiction festival. Ice...
Phil Rickman – The Magus of HayPhil Rickman swapped his native Lancashire for the rural peace of mid-Wales to work as a BBC radio and TV reporter. He now lives on the Welsh Border, where he writes crime novels with a restrained ele...
Jean Chapman, Deadly SeriousJean Chapman lives in rural Leicestershire worked as freelance journalist before switching to fiction. After a first foray in the short story magazine markets, she wrote sixteen historical novels befo...
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