The Crime Readers' Association

Writing as Escapism by AJ Waines

30th April 2018

Have you ever been caught daydreaming? Missed your stop on the bus because your mind was miles away? Been hauled up for staring out of the classroom window as a child? If so, you probably learnt that...

Going Fishing, by Gary Connolly

28th March 2018

For me, stories begin with images more often than not. Sometimes they’re grainy, but more often visceral and clear. Blood Will Be Born started in this way and was written on and off between 2014 and 2...

Finding the Plot by Bill Kitson

27th February 2018

‘There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.’ Terry Pratchett One of...

Going Against the Grain by Antony Johnston

12th February 2018

It’s time to admit that I enjoy going against the grain. Until now I’ve been best known as a graphic novelist, and I’ve had my share of success; a couple of New York Times bestsellers, some critical a...

Lady First by Lea O’Harra

15th December 2017

Lea O’Harra on her new novel, the third in the Inspector Inoue mystery series, published by Endeavour Press, and the themes and concerns that underpin it. Fujikawa, a small town in rural, western Japa...

Writing About a Dying Heroine by J F Kirwan

27th November 2017

88° North has an unusual premise, since the heroine, Nadia, has radiation sickness from her last encounter with her nemesis, Salamander. She’s been given weeks to live. She could go to an exotic islan...

Beau Death – Peter Lovesey on his new novel

31st October 2017

A wrecking ball swings into the roof of an old house near Bath. The people watching are in for a shock. When the dust clears, a skeleton is revealed sitting in the loft dressed in eighteenth century c...

WRITING THE MUSIC AND COMPOSING THE PLOT by Sarah Rayne

31st October 2017

Music has very often been a catalyst for me in the creating of a plot, and it seems to have found its way into a good many of my books. There’s the eerie death lament, ‘Thaisa’s Song’ in The Bell Towe...

CWA Debut Dagger Competition Now Open

18th October 2017

The Crime Writers’ Association have opened their popular Debut Dagger competition for 2018. The competition is for the opening of a crime novel and any writer who has never had a traditional publishin...

Give My Regards to Uncle Stalin by Fiona Veitch Smith

14th September 2017

A recent review of the second book in my Poppy Denby Investigates series, The Kill Fee, has made me laugh. The reader’s main gripe was that in her opinion my characterisation of communists was too ‘po...

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