My novels, ‘The Tumbling Girl’ and ‘The Innocents’ are set in the world of Victorian music halls and I’m often asked why I’m so interested in this particular era of history. For me, the Victorians were very much like us, with similar concerns and anxieties, particularly about the pace of change and that nostalgic longing for an apparently simpler life. But my research often throws up things that reveal the Victorians were profoundly  different from us twenty-first century folk. Those weirder, more surprising elements of Victorian life — the things that occasionally leave me speechless — a ..read more

Back from the Dead is the third in the Amsinck’s Danish crime series. Copenhagen is sweltering in the summer heat. A headless torso is found in the waters of the harbour. A missing driver, close to a controversial politician may be the victim. Journalist Jensen and DI Jungersen are on the case, if not entirely in synch. Paul Burke: Welcome to Crime Time, Heidi. You’ve been writing all your career but it didn’t start with novels. Heidi Amsinck: Yes, I’ve been telling stories all my life, one way or the other. First as a journalist in Copenhagen and London, then as a short story writer and now a ..read more

From the moment I came up with the idea of writing a history of mysteries, The Life of Crime was never going to be a slim volume. After all, I wanted to reach back to the roots of detective fiction and go right up to the present day, whilst looking at authors and novels from all over the world. For good measure, I also wanted to talk about crime plays, TV shows, films, and true crime. No wonder the book took seven years to write and finally weighed in at a quarter of a million words… Whether you write novels or non-fiction or (as I do) both, the final version of a book is often rather differen ..read more

From a Golden Age classic to a foundational spy thriller and a legendary police procedural, Murder by the Book will see crime writers Fiona Veitch Smith, Abir Mukherjee and Nadine Matheson discuss seminal crime novels Murder Must Advertise, Gorky Park, and Prime Suspect. Chaired by crime critic and broadcaster Barry Forshaw. Hosted in collaboration with the Crime Writers’ Association. TUESDAY 4 JUNE 2024, 7PM to 8PM. Open to all. Hosted online using Zoom Webinars. TICKETS: Free, booking required. ACCESSIBILITY: Live subtitles are available using Zoom’s Live Transcript function. Book your ticke ..read more

This year the Quais du Polar in Lyon, the largest European festival of crime novels and one of the largest in the world, in celebrating its 20th season, was marked by the intrusion into the spine of the novels by the real-world problems and catastrophes going on around the festival. Each evening, just outside the festival walls, in front of the town hall, there was a vigil calling for a cease fire in Gaza while inside there were novelists incorporating climate apocalypse, rabid income inequality, and the indignity of European cities, most notably Venice and Barcelona, overcome by tourism. In a ..read more

I borrowed the title of my latest novel, Harlem After Midnight, from Oscar Micheaux’s 1934 silent movie of the same name. The plot bears no relation, but I love the imagery that the title evokes. This is a sequel to my previous novel, Miss Aldridge Regrets, where Lena Aldridge made a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary ocean liner, spending a tense few days trying to survive a murder spree while also avoiding becoming a prime suspect. I loved the glamour of the first-class ocean travel, the only way to go in the 1930s, and I wanted to find the right setting for Lena’s next adventure, an i ..read more

I am a crime writer. I am a CWA Dagger winner and a two-time short-lister for the Gold Dagger. And yet I was asked right here in Crime Time by none other than Barry Forshaw why I stopped writing crime novels. (https://www.crimetime.co.uk/why-i-stopped-writing-crime-fiction-i-think/). Had I stopped? Had I ever started? What’s the definition? Oh no … we’re not going to rehash that again, are we? No. The Curse of Pietro Houdini is my seventh novel. My publishers did not publish it as a crime novel therefore (as far as the world is being told) it is not a crime novel despite it being an art heist ..read more

A month of quiet triumphs and stark disappointments, which takes the reader from 1942 Boston, 1939 Warsaw and 1946 Sydney to a future planet Mars and an island literally at the end of the world, encompassing the tragedy of a school shooting, the disappearance of children on two separate occasions, an insidious tale of lawyers and old books in today’s New York, a traditional English country mansion and a San Francisco straight out of Alfred Hitchcock. A most varied menu indeed! BOOK OF THE MONTH Dwyer Murphy/AN HONEST LIVING    (No Exit Press) Not only my Book of the Month but al ..read more

How do you feel about authors playing meta-fictional games with the reader? Inserting themselves (or a fictional version thereof) into the narrative? If that appeals, you will almost certainly be in whodunnit heaven with Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz (Century, £22). As with previous books in this series, the crime writer once again collaborates with the fictional detective Daniel Hawthorne in a delirious concoction that transplants a Christie-style mystery into the present. The much-loathed Giles Kenworthy is not much missed when the wealthy hedge fund manager is found dead by his retired ..read more

#OnTheSofa With Victoria returned in March – Season 6 opened with an episode featuring two top booksellers; Alex Forbes of FourBears Books in Caversham and Richard Naiff of Waterstones, Brighton. They join Victoria to discuss what’s hot and what’s not in crime fiction. Listen in and find out what’s popular with the book buying public, do your tastes concur? Allegiances are definitely changing and new sub-genres growing but one particular author’s back catalogue never stops selling, can you guess who? Victoria Selman chats to bestselling and up-and-coming authors for this new season. Just avail ..read more