Two novels set in Scotland and one in Ireland, a school murder mystery with a distinct, belly-laughing difference, a diversity of family relationships riven by secrets and, sadly, some major disappointments including two by writers I have always greatly admired. Add a smidgeon of supernatural, bloody murder in the Arctic, a Yorkshire bursting with serial killers and you have your February menu served up cold and bloody ..read more

War Stories: Creative Potential in the Theatre of Conflict  In the theater of war, high stakes naturally lend themselves to stories of drama and action. However, it is the people, the cast of characters with their quirks, ambitions, and hopes, who drive the story. The task, as always, is to bring them to life on the page in engaging and meaningful ways ..read more

No organisation has inspired grudging respect, fear and loathing quite like the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, known as the Stasi, not even the KGB. Yet most of our western ideas come more from myth than fact. It's become a threat like the Spanish Inquisition without the mollification of humour. Monty Python, or the distance of time ..read more

What’s one of the most difficult issues facing authors of crime or thriller novels? Well, hopefully one of them is that we haven’t actually committed any of the crimes or the serious misdemeanours we write about. I mean, I know they say “write what you know,” but no one’s suggesting we launch a string of murders just to shift a few copies ..read more

My last few thrillers have had a common thread – wealthy people, social satire, a group of friends with dark secrets. This time I wanted to do something even darker and more serious. I had never written about a serial killer before, and wanted to find a way to do that which was respectful and not sensationalist ..read more

Arriving with an encomium from the writer David Mark, this is a striking debut that provocatively addresses a variety of issues while not forgetting the key imperative of the crime novel: to keep accumulating levels of tension ..read more

The Pleasures and Challenges of Translating Historical Slang and Dialect... I have translated short stories, sample chapters and even poems from German before, but Nightingale & Co by Charlotte Printz was my first attempt at tackling a full-length novel. When I first read it, I thought it would be a fun and quick translation project, but the reality proved somewhat different. While it was indeed great fun, it ended up being much more difficult than I expected ..read more

Covering: STRAY DOG, Akira Kurosawa, director/BFI THE USUAL SUSPECTS, 4K Bryan Singer, director/Arrow DALGLIESH SERIES 2, Various directors/Acorn Media RUNNING ON KARMA, Johnie To, Wai Ka-fai, directors/Eureka ..read more

Mick Herron Awarded CWA Diamond Dagger ..read more

As a veteran Cold War Spy reader it's pleasing to see the genre rejuvenated and appealing so strongly to a new generation of readers. I'm currently writing an encyclopedia of spy fiction, due out early next year, and it's thrilling to see so many new ground-breaking contemporary and historical titles ..read more