The Crime Readers' Association

Image by christoph_mschrd via PixabayMargery Allingham Short Story Competition

14th November 2023

A lot of readers are writers, too. Whether you’re a bestselling author or an aspiring wordsmith, if you have a short mystery in the works, the Margery Allingham Short Story Competition wants to...

Jim Eldridge – Murder at the Tower of London

1st September 2023

London 1899. The dead body of a Yeoman Warder  is discovered at the Tower of London inside a suit of armour belonging to Henry VIII. He had been run through with a sword. The Prince of Wales, fearing...

Helena Dixon – Murder at the Village Fair

31st July 2023

Kitty Underhay is riding a carousel… with death. Summer 1935. Enjoying a belated honeymoon visiting her new husband Matt’s family in the rolling Yorkshire hills, Kitty strolls through a village fair....

“The Red Death” by Abraham Kawa

4th July 2023

‘THE RED DEATH’ BY ABRAHAM KAWA 1970. After a disturbing murder case left DI Chris Bates’ mental health shattered, he spends time recovering in an asylum before being released to a halfway house. When...

In conversation with Sara Paretsky

15th February 2023

The CWA North America chapter recently hosted an evening in conversation with Sara Paretsky (author of the VI Warshawksi books.) It was recorded and is now hosted on our YouTube channel. Free to watch...

MURDER MYSTERIES: A NEW GOLDEN AGE? asks Tom Mead

25th January 2023

Like many people, I grew up in thrall to the Golden Age of Detective Fiction (GAD for short). Our home was heaped with Agatha Christie paperbacks, so even before I picked up a single one and actually...

‘The Art of Naming’ by Kim Hays

14th December 2022

War and Peace is supposed to contain 500 named characters, and readers find it hard to keep them straight. For one thing, each one is called by multiple names, and, for another, those names are Russia...

‘The Shadows of Rutherford House’ by CE Rose

24th November 2022

I was once a solicitor who spent each working day dealing with heinous crimes, difficult divorces and professional negligence claims. Now I’m Caroline England/CE Rose author, the ‘Duchess of Dark Dome...

Suspense Novels: Home or Away? by Helen Cooper

24th October 2022

I write this while looking at the covers of my two novels. My debut, The Downstairs Neighbour, features a house with a half-open doorway: an ordinary, familiar image, but with an air of shadowy secrec...

‘Taking to Drink with Dickens’ by JC Briggs

7th October 2022

I was studying my map of London in 1850 to find the end of the Blackwall Railway where Dickens and Jones must alight in pursuit of a murderer. I needed a tavern in which the murderer could be holed up...

‘From Dallas, Texas’ by MJ Williams

19th August 2022

My new book, The Velocity of Blood follows 17-year-old Jack Tolleson as he’s bullied online and offline, fat-shamed, victimized and finally thrown away and forgotten. One day in October, he breaks. In...

‘CRIME FICTION IN THE BLITZ’ BY MIKE HOLLOW

8th June 2022

The trouble with writing historical crime fiction is that it’s fiction, which means you make it all up, but it’s also set in the past, and if you get your history wrong it can really annoy the person...

Are you a saint or a sinner? asks Caroline England

24th May 2022

When it comes to my psychological suspense novels, I’m a counsellor, therapist and particularly a psychologist. How I love to excavate my characters’ innermost thoughts and feelings and find out who t...

Writing about Food in Fiction

26th April 2022

I love mysteries that talk of food. Some of my favourite series include the Inspector Chen Cao series by Qiu Xiaolong, which brings Chinese everyday cuisine to life, Mia P Manansala’s Tita Rosie...

28th March 2022

Announcements of Daggers 2022 & Self-Nomination for 2023 All lists will be reproduced on the CWA website shortly after the announcements. Debut Dagger longlist only: online late afternoon event (5...

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