CWA DAGGER AWARDS 2020 LONGLISTS ANNOUNCEDThe 2020 longlists for the prestigious CWA Dagger awards, which honour the very best in the crime writing genre, have been announced. The world-famous Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Daggers are the...
The Pleasure of Rereading, by Sheila MitchellH.R.F. Keating was one of the great pillars of British crime writing in the twentieth century; he was a crime fiction critic for decades, President of the Detection Club, Chairman of the CWA, Fellow o...
Lemonade, With A Cherry On Top , by Cathy Ace(Or, How Lockdown Celebrations Can Be “Fun”!) 2020 was always going to be a Big Year for me. I was going to celebrate my 60th birthday in style: husband and I would relax on a cruise around the Caribb...
Book Clubs and Covid-19, by Andy GriffeeTiller Thriller author Andy Griffee describes a close encounter with a book club. In the year BC (Before Coronavirus) a neighbour ambushed me at our farm shop. Would I join her and her lady friends at...
Golden Inspiration, by Victoria DowdThe so-called cosy mystery is a staple of crime fiction. From Agatha Christie to M.C. Beaton, we can’t get enough of village life with the occasional body thrown in. For me, the Golden Age shone with...
The Tempus Project by Antony JohnstonBridge is back. In The Exphoria Code, elite MI6 hacker Brigitte Sharp foiled a terror attack on London that used stolen military drone software to deliver a ‘dirty bomb’. Now Bridge must battle a seri...
The 2020 CWA Diamond Dagger Winner InterviewAward-winning historical novelist Andrew Taylor, holder of the Diamond Dagger himself in 2009, interviews the CWA’s Diamond Dagger in 2020: renowned editor, versatile writer of fiction and non-fiction...
What Did You Do in the Crisis, Detective? – by Jason MonaghanI’m currently writing a novel set in the 1930s. An immediate question in creating a character is ‘what did they do in the Great War?’ A man over the age of 30 would have seen military service or have...
Applications of Suspense Techniques in “Night Train for Berlin” – by William Burton McCormickI’ve always had a love of European thrillers set during or just before World War II. I read The Guns of Navarone and its sequel Force Ten from Navarone when I was eleven years old, absorbing every wor...
Short story writing – by Alex ChaudhuriMay 1 sees the publication of a thrilling new collection of crime stories by ten of indie publisher Lume Books’ (formerly Endeavour Media) best crime writers. The anthology, Given in Evidence, featur...
Crime Writers in ResidenceDuring the Covid-19 crisis authors will not have the usual opportunities to promote their books at public events. Festivals, readings and launches have been cancelled – including all of the events sch...
Coronavirus and Creativity, by Antony Johnston‘Self-isolate? You mean stay indoors, don’t leave the house, and don’t socialise with anyone? Why, I’ve been practising for this my whole life!’ Every author has cracked some form of this joke over th...
Ready for an Armchair Road Trip? (Not coming to a screen near you just yet!) by B E Jones‘I’d love to see a draft of the script when there is one,’ I said, trying not to get over excited as I sipped a glass of London’s alarmingly expensive red wine. I was fresh off the 10.05 train from Ca...
Mystery for Golden Age Fans from CWA Diamond Dagger Winner Martin EdwardsThe CWA’s decision to award me the Diamond Dagger for 2020 is a huge honour. I’m so thrilled; I can still hardly believe it. Among other things, it’s a massive fillip to morale, and all writers benefi...
Fear Not the Details … by Paul GitshamOne of the scariest things about writing contemporary police procedurals is the attention to detail that is necessary. To write a modern police investigation that feels authentic requires some insight...
Murder game ideas for these difficult timesReading is of course a fabulous way to pass the time in this period of social isolation. But when all you crave is social contact – is it possible to still get the thrill of jointly solving a murder...
Eating the Dead: the Parsees of India by Vaseem KhanThe fifth novel in the Baby Ganesh Agency series, Bad Day at the Vulture Club, sees my protagonist, Inspector Chopra investigating the murder of a wealthy Parsee in India’s city of dreams – Mumbai. Pa...
Tiller Thrillers by Andy GriffeeJust when you thought it was safe to go out on a canal, another Tiller-Thriller comes along. At a time of plague and pestilence it is tempting to think that a peaceful cruise to remote and isolated lo...
Poisoned at the Priory, from the Cold Case Jury series by Antony M BrownBalham, 1876. When the newly-wed barrister Charles Bravo ingests a rare poison, all evidence suggests suicide. But in one of the most infamous inquests of all time, a coroner finds it to be an unlawfu...
Judging a Book by Its Cover, by Pauline RowsonPauline is author of the DI Andy Horton crime series (14); Art Marvik mystery thrillers (3) and the 1950 set mystery Death in the Cove, the first in the Inspector Ryga series. Book covers are a...
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The CRA Newsletter: August 2020
Case Files 45
The CRA Newsletter: July 2020