The Crime Readers' Association

Case Files 25

31st March 2017

The latest issue of Case Files has just been sent out to CRA members.
Join the Crime Readers’ Association for all the latest information on newly published/forthcoming crime novels and fascinating insights into our members.

In the latest issue of Case Files, you can learn:

  • Which CWA member was a legal adviser to Liverpool Football Club for twenty years?
  • Which CWA member discovered – after years of getting covered in mud, frozen, and soaked – the memorial to the late poet laureate, Ted Hughes, on Dartmoor?
  • Which CWA member signs books using a special signature designed at a Pizza Hut on the outskirts of Gloucester?
  • Which CWA member, during a particularly strange day as a youth on his father’s farm, tried out bullfighting with a live bull? (Both bull and boy survived the experience!)
  • Which CWA member, while selling copies of his horror novels, was approached by James Herbert who wanted to buy one? (He was so over-awed, he gave it to him for free.)
  • Which CWA member has travelled all over the world to research her novels – but lives within two miles of a deserted Leicestershire village where she can trace her family back to the 1600s?
  • Which CWA member bakes sourdough bread using a jar of ferment called Dr Pretorius, named after the renegade scientist from the film, Bride of Frankenstein?
  • Which CWA member started his working life managing a very large sheep farm high up on the slopes of Mt. Kenya?
  • Which CWA member was once a guinea pig for a taste test on a lethally poisoned curry? (She survived – with a totally numbed tongue.)
  • Which CWA member has a PhD in chimpanzee psychology? (Which she now finds very useful, since she has a small child.)
  • Which CWA member speaks five languages and, if they gave them out, would have a doctorate in international swearing?
  • Which CWA member was awarded an MBE in 2014 for services to literature?
  • Which CWA member once appeared as a character in a book, only to be eaten by a giant mutant pig? (Still, the experience inspired him to write….)
  • Which CWA member’s entry in a cookery competition received the following verdict from Fanny Craddock: ‘Yuk!’

View the answers in issue 25 here.

To get a free copy of Case Files delivered direct to your inbox, simply join the CRA today.
It’s easy, just enter your details below to receive the bimonthly Case Files, monthly newsletters and occasional snippets. We promise your details will not be shared with any third party.


Join the cra


Chris Simms, Editor, Case Files.

Go back to Blog

Join the CRA

Joining the CRA is FREE. There are no lengthy forms to fill out and we need nothing but your email. You will receive a regular newsletter but no spam.