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Win tickets to see Charles Cumming
May 14, 20135:00 am
© Toby Madden
We’re giving you the chance to meet Charles Cumming, author of A Foreign Country, the thriller of the year.
To win one of two pairs of tickets to his latest event in which he discusses the myths and realities surrounding the secret service, simply answer the following question by commenting on this post:
Which fictional spy would you most want to come to your rescue and why?
The best two answers will win a pair of tickets and the 3 runners up will get a copy of A Foreign Country, so get writing now! You have until midnight on Wednesday 15th May to enter…
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Friday giveaway winners revealed!
February 19, 201312:25 pm
An enormous thank you to everyone who entered our Friday Giveaway competition! We had a fantastic line up and your entries were brilliant, making it incredibly hard to pick the winners, but we eventually narrowed it down to…
A Foreign Country goes to Jake Eliot, who said:
I’d love to get my hands on a copy of Charles Cumming’s latest, A Foreign Country. I enjoyed watching Skyfall at the cinema, but it’s high time Bond’s flashy suits and big explosions cleared the way for proper suspense, taut dialogue and authentic spycraft. And by the sound of it, I reckon following Tom Kell tracing the disappearance of the first female head of MI6 across Europe and Africa will help me put the stresses of my working week into perspective.
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Win the books in our arms!
February 15, 20137:38 am
FRIDAY GIVE AWAY! You could win one of the books in our arms!
Just comment here or on our Facebook Page to tell us which one you want and why!
Best answers will win and we’ll pick our winners on Monday.
Just in case you can’t see clearly, the books we’re carrying are:
Close to the Bone by Stuart MacBride
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More plaudits for A Foreign Country
December 5, 201210:32 am
After winning the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller this year AND being awarded the Scottish Crime Book of the Year award at Bloody Scotland, we are thrilled to say that Charles Cumming’s A Foreign Country has been selected as the Sunday Times best thriller of the year AND was one of the Guardian’s best thrillers of 2012.
We are so chuffed for Charles. This is one of the books this year that reviewers are raving about so if you haven’t read it yet, make sure you add the classy hardback edition to your Christmas wish list OR if you can’t wait, you can download it on to your e-reader right now!
Want to know what people have been saying? Here are just SOME of the reviews we’ve had in…
- ‘Often compared to John Le Carré, Cumming here emerges from his shadow in a thriller that has everything you could ask for – a twisty, sexy plot, topical themes, memorable characters and plentiful spy lore’ Sunday Times Books of the Year, Best Thriller
- ‘The spook tradecraft is unerringly accurate … We are in Smiley country, but with extra 21st century nuance … Cumming has an exquisite touch and we should treasure him’ Daily Mail
- ‘Fans of le Carré who’ve been feeling bereft lately will undoubtedly appreciate Charles Cumming’s latest spy thriller, A Foreign Country.’ Guardian Thrillers of the Year
- ‘Charles Cumming is an astonishing (and to me) new talent: his spy thriller A Foreign Country is surely a film waiting to be made’ Scotland on Sunday
- ‘Two decades after the Cold War, there is a new generation of spy novelists, and Charles Cumming is one of the best of them’ Mail on Sunday
- ‘Refreshing, plausible and effective … Best of all is the sheer pace of the narrative … This book is perfect travel reading because, once you’ve started it, it’s not easy to put it down’ The Spectator
- ‘A rollercoaster of a ride … Bang up-to-date and well-written spy thriller’ The Sun
- ‘Don’t start this novel close to bedtime: you are likely to be up for most of the night to find out how it ends. It grips the reader’s attention from the first page, and there is no skipping paragraphs. Every word matters … It is all eminently plausible … A fast-moving treat’ The Scotsman
- ‘Eat your heart out Daniel Craig … Cumming showcases meticulous research and insight into the undercover life of spies’ GQ
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A Foreign Country WINS Scottish Crime Book of the Year!
October 12, 20126:01 am
Charles Cumming has been awarded the Scottish Crime Book of the Year, for his latest spy thriller A Foreign Country. The win was announced at the closing of the inaugural Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival in Stirling.The judges chose A Foreign Country out of 40 entries, with the chair of the panel Sheena McDonald saying that “A Foreign Country by Charles Cumming is far more than a pacy novel with a satisfactory ending. This book is exciting, imaginative and well-written. It doesn’t simply tick the crime-fiction boxes – it’s simply an outstanding novel.”
A delighted Charles Cumming said, “It’s a huge honour to win such a prestigious award in the first year of this fantastic festival.”
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JUBILEE WEEKEND IS COMING… get your crime & thriller hit for just £1.99!
May 24, 20124:08 am
Jubilee weekend is almost here (if you hadn’t already noticed all the paraphernalia around town) and that means a FOUR DAY WEEKEND. What better way to celebrate all that glorious reading time than by snapping up the following fantastic Kindle reads for the teensy price of £1.99!!
A Spy by Nature by Charles Cumming
For fans of TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY comes this
masterclass in suspense about a spy caught up in
his own web of deception…
Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride
Stuart MacBride’s Number One bestselling crime series
opens with this award-winning debut. DS Logan McRae
and the police in Aberdeen hunt a child killer
who stalks the frozen streets.The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill
A stunning, fast-moving, standalone psychological thriller
from the award-winning author of the
Dalziel and Pascoe series.
Fallen Idols by Neil WhiteA Premiership footballer is shot dead in cold blood on a
busy London street, and a country is gripped by terror.
Who is behind this apparently motiveless killing – and
who’s next in the firing line?Vanishing Point by Danielle Ramsay
The stunning new novel from a rising star of crime writing,
featuring a sadistic and powerful trafficking ring
that has its roots in the highest corridors of power…
The Alchemist’s Secret by Scott Mariani (only .99p)
Ben Hope lives on the edge. A former élite member of
the SAS, Ben now devotes his life to finding kidnapped
children. But when Ben is recruited to locate an ancient
manuscript which could save a dying child,he embarks
on the deadliest quest of his life. -
How well do you know the Killer Reads team?
March 9, 201210:05 am
Match the fact to the correct team member and win a copy of 5 of our latest proofs, so you can read them months before they’ve even hit the shops!
From the left: Sacrilege by S.J. Parris, The Schemer by Kimberley Chambers, A Foreign Country by Charles Cumming, Portrait of a Spy by Daniel Silva and The Key by Simon Toyne
Which member of the Killer Reads team…
- … has shared the screen with Al Pacino?
- …sang in a national Australian campaign about saving water?
- …is married to a TV book club pick author?
- …was once a tudor model?
- …saw the Dalai Lama on the way to KFC?
- …has eaten a tarantula?
- …set up their own charity in Uganda?
- …has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro?
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The Trinity Six Launch Party
February 21, 20117:30 am
Man of the moment Charles Cumming
Charles Cumming’s absorbing post Cold War thriller THE TRINITY SIX had a fantastic launch party earlier this month at Daunt Books in London’s Holland Park.
It was an auspicious start for a book which has already got rave reviews from most of the national newspapers. Our gratitude goes out to MI6 for allowing us to have the book launch – your agents were very polite, they clapped at the appropriate moments and didn’t rumble anyone. And a big HELLO to whoever has been tapping my phone since the party!
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Killer Reads meets The Wire
November 25, 201012:17 pm
A couple of lucky members from the Killer Reads team spent a great day recently with Charles Cumming and Dominic West, star (and heartthrob) from The Wire. Dom had been asked to help with our promotion of the fantastic new thriller The Trinity Six (publishing in Feb 2011).
We couldn’t believe our luck when unforeseen pneumatic drill action forced us from our original location into Dom’s own home. Team KR arrived sometime after the morning’s pneumatic events and armed with 10 pain au chocolat patiently sat and watched Dominic read from Charles Cumming’s new novel. He definitely sounded the part and gave us great hope that one day he may be persuaded to play Gaddis if a blockbuster movie is ever made….fingers crossed, fingers crossed, fingers crossed…
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Daniel Blake; From one author to another…
July 6, 20104:13 am
Daniel Blake’s 10 favourite writers, in alphabetical order:
Harlan Coben.
In Cobenland, the suburbs are not white and shiny behind their picket fences; they’re dark, scary places where everyone carries secrets, and danger occurs when those secrets collide. The familiarity of the settings and the characters seduce the reader; these are people like you, Coben says, barely pausing to strap you in before starting the rollercoaster. His writing is pacy, vivid and often laugh-out-loud funny, almost physically impelling you to turn the page. Plot twists come thick and fast – Coben puts a rug under your feet with the express intention of pulling it out again when you least expect it – but rarely do they feel contrived or overdone.
Martin Cruz Smith.
The Arkady Renko series tick all the boxes of superior crime fiction. Expert characterisation? Check. Tack-sharp dialogue? Check. Sense of place? Check. Deft prose style? Check. Not since Greene has a writer managed to combine character and thrills so seamlessly. Renko is a man we root for, simple as that. He is moral without being a prig, humble and compassionate without being a saint, smart without being pedantic, loyal without being blind, wryly cynical without being bitter, and optimistic without being gullible. A good man, in other words; one with flaws which make us empathise with him, and with qualities which make us aspire to be him.
Charles Cumming.
The search for the ‘new Le Carre’ is one of the publishing industry’s most perennial exercises, and there’s no shortage of contenders. Cumming is arguably the frontrunner. His writing is sharp and deft, and he has the confidence to let his characters drive the story rather than throw in otiose plot twists for the sake of it. He also gets better with every book; his most recent, the China-set Typhoon, is his most ambitious and accomplished work yet. The apprentice may one day overtake the master.
