Crime Fiction Lover have announced the winners of their 2024 awards. Congratulations to all the winners. Book of the Year Winner:  Midnight and Blue by Ian Rankin Book of the Year Editor’s Choice:  Guide Me Home by Attica Locke Best Debut Winner:  The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey Best Debut Editor’s Choice:  Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney Best in Translation Winner:  Death at the Sanatorium by Ragnar Jónasson, translated by Victoria Cribb Best in Translation Editor’s Choice:  The Night of Baba Yaga by Akira Otani, translated by Sam Bett B ..read more

This year I did not read that many non-fiction books. However, there are three books that I throughly enjoyed and were my favourite non- fiction reads this year. Anyone that is interested in Miss Marple, the history of Victorian female detectives and writing about murder should read these books. All throughly entertaining and thought provoking. They are of course in alphabetical order. Agatha Christie's Marple: Expert on Wickedness by Dr Mark Aldridge (Publisher HarperCollins) A new investigation from Dr Mark Aldridge, exploring a lifetime of Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple. In Agatha Chri ..read more

 Why set a crime story against the backdrop of the First World War?  There are many good reasons, of course – not least the moral ambiguity and jeopardy that war provides – but the real reason, for a writer, is that one is drawn to it.  And in my case that began a long time ago with a handful individuals, who led me on a path that would end with Cut and Run, my new crime thriller about an injured ex-serviceman named Frank Champion who goes to back to France in 1916 to solve a murder. I’ll start with the maiden aunts. Did you ever have a maiden aunt? They don’t make th ..read more

  CrimeFest, one of the UK’s leading crime fiction events hosted in Bristol each year, has announced 2025 will be its final convention. In a statement announcing the closure, Adrian Muller, co-founder, co-host and director of CrimeFest, said: “It is with sadness – but great pride – that we announce that our sixteenth CrimeFest, which takes place from 15-18 May 2025, will be the final one.” Inspired by a visit to Bristol in 2006 of the American Left Coast Crime convention, the first CrimeFest was held in June 2008. CrimeFest is a convention run by fans of the genre, initially organi ..read more

  I have to make an apology. It was only meant to be a small, private joke – a bit of fun – because there's precious little of that in most crime fiction pages. I'd just spent four years on the Faroes trilogy, writing a story which didn't shy away from the bleaker side of multiple murders. So, having brought The Fire Pit to a rather graphic and dark conclusion, I was ready for a change of mood.  The trouble is, I've always been rather pedantic about accuracy in police procedure. My personal (and slightly neurotic) worry is that someone will read one of my books and then point out th ..read more

My favourite reads this year have spanned spy thrillers, a debut novel an end of a trilogy, translated novels and a contemporary topical thriller to name few. They are as follows in alphabetical order. The Sparrow & The Peacock by I S Berry (No Exit Press/Bedford Square Publishers) Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain for his final tour, he's anxious to dispense with his mission — uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency. But then he meets Almaisa, an enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats ne ..read more

  Joffe Books is delighted to announce the winner of the Joffe Books Prize 2024: Rupa Mahadevan, for her addictive and atmospheric psychological thriller, The Goddess of Death. She receives a two-book publishing deal with Joffe Books, a £1,000 cash prize and a £25,000 audiobook deal from Audible for the first book. This is Britain’s biggest crime prize. The Joffe Books Prize for Crime Writers of Colour was established in 2021 to actively seek out writers from communities that are underrepresented in crime fiction and support them in building sustainable careers, while simultaneously dis ..read more

  The winner of the 2024 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year is:  DEAD MEN DANCING by Jógvan Isaksen translated from the Faroese by Marita Thomsen and published by Norvik Press.  Jógvan Isaksen will receive a trophy, and both the author and translator will receive a cash prize.  The judges’ statement on DEAD MEN DANCING:  Similar to the story of the ancient god Prometheus, a man has been shackled to rocks on the Faroe Islands, and left to drown on the beach. The discovery of his body throws the local community into an unsettling chaos, and ..read more

 BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Crime Fiction  SERIES EDITORS:  Andrew Pepper, Queen’s University Belfast, UK  Stewart King, Monash University, Australia  Caroline Reitz, John Jay College/ CUNY, USA  This series will produce exciting, new understandings of crime fiction and crime fiction criticism in their national and international contexts and as both a historical and contemporary phenomenon. Offering studies of crime fiction in its broadest terms (including print fiction, graphic novels, TV serials, film, podcasts and more), the series aims to reflect what is a vibrant ..read more

It was Christmas 2022, and I was between projects, whiling away the holiday by mulling over my favourite Georgian romantic poets, and wondering if some episode in their often eccentric lives might provide a spark for my next historical mystery. Modern biographies are all very well, but the most fun and detailed accounts are often contained in older ones, usually heavier on narrative and lighter on analysis. Accordingly, I was sitting in the festive kitchen, idly reading Alexander Gilchrist’s 1880 Life of William Blake, when I first came across the extraordinary story of seventeen-year-old Bla ..read more