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Cramp When I was about eleven, I spent some time working on my signature. It was during a particularly boring maths class (or it might have been physics, who knows? Not me, and I was there... I think) that I sat down and doodled my name into the fantastic stylish signature that would adorn the cover of platinum albums, or movie posters, or groupies’ boobs … something like that anyway. Because, let’s face it, who doesn’t think they’re going to set the world alight when they’re eleven? Before spots and puberty kick in to make sure you know just how ridiculous a creature you really are. So by the end of the lesson I had learned nothing about logarithmic functions (or transistors if it was physics), but was all set to meet my fans. When, or more likely if, I ever had any, I’d be able to whip out a pen and sign my name with the appropriate flourish for a rock/filmstar. Of course no one wanted me to sign anything. So my fancy new signature got put in a cupboard and forgotten about. Oh, I’d drag it out every now and then when I was old enough to have a cheque book, but other than that it was dead weight. It all changed when Cold Granite came out... Or, to be more precise, just before it came out, because in the run-up to publication I went on an all expenses paid trip to the HarperCollins Distribution Centre in sunny Bishopbriggs. Which is a canteen, a few offices, and a dirty big warehouse full of books. They sat me down in a large-ish office with a pack of pens and a stack of books to sign. Three thousand of the buggers. Given that my previous record for signing things was about once every six weeks, this presented something of a challenge. Read More

Wondering what to read this year? Look no further. The Killer Reads Team have put pen to paper to tell you what we’re most excited about publishing and reading in 2013.   Emad Akhtar, Assistant Editor for Crime and Thriller, says: The books I'm most excited about publishing: The Tower by Simon Toyne, marks the end of the Sancti trilogy, and will definitely be an event for all the people who have been following this story from Sanctus. You can read any of them on their own, to be honest – they are just amazing, slick, satisfying thrillers which take you to really unexpected places. I don’t think anyone’s quite doing what he’s doing with the genre; a really special mix of ancient themes and cutting-edge ideas.   And of course, The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. If you’ve been following any of the buzz building around this dark, hypnotic serial killer story, then you’ll know that this is one to put everything on hold for. Lauren is a really rare talent, who can bend her imagination to any genre, shaping and mashing-up stories into highly original novels which no-one else could write. I think she’ll win a lot of new fans this year with The Shining Girls, if the early reviews are anything to go by.   Both these books are out in April and if you don’t read at least one of them, I will hold you in contempt forever. Read More

From the No. 1 bestselling author of The American Boy comes a brilliant new historical thriller set during the American War of Independence. Manhattan, 1778. A city of secrets, profiteers, loyalists and double agents. As the last part of America under British rule, New York is home to a swelling tide of refugees seeking justice from the British crown. Edward Savill is sent from London to investigate the claims of dispossessed loyalists. No sooner does he land than he becomes embroiled in the case of a gentleman murdered in the city’s notorious Canvas Town. An escaped slave hangs for the crime, but Savill is convinced they have executed the wrong man. Read More

How does it work? Starting on Friday 11th January, two blog posts will go up each week for four weeks on some of the best crime writing blogs within the community. As well as providing a fascinating insight into Voss and Edwards’ writing relationship, their inspiration for All… Read More

Fed up of mince pies? Sick of carols? Want to swap the saccharine sweet side of Christmas for something a bit more…refreshing? Well, treat yourself to another side of Christmas with Paul Finch’s  short story Midnight Service. If this doesn’t send shivers down your spine, then we don’t know what… Read More

Daniel Blake's chilling new thriller, White Death, is set in the world of pro chess. To celebrate publication, Daniel has been kind enough to write a piece especially for us, explaining the three vital qualities chess brings to the crime novel… Chess metaphors abound in crime fiction. A master criminal uses people as pawns. An impasse is stalemate, a victory checkmate. A detective will try a gambit. The denouement is an endgame. But chess itself is much more rarely used by crime novelists, and it’s not hard to see why. Put bluntly, the game has a massive image problem. Where backgammon enjoys the patina of upmarket gentlemen’s clubs and poker the grungy cool of smoke-filled rooms and vast jackpots, chess is seen as the province of nerds with BO and hair greasy enough to fry chips in.   Since I play chess, apply regular deodorant and have precious little hair left (greasy or otherwise) this portrait of the chess player as über-spod has always irked me a little. I set White Death against the background of pro chess because the game brings three vital qualities to the crime novel: intelligence, intimidation and insanity. Read More

Ever wondered how you make the leap to become a writer? This month sees Paul Finch recall the transition from his days in the Police to his time as a scriptwriter for The Bill in his fourth blog piece for Killer Reads.   The first time I ever put pen to paper to write a serious thriller, it was just after I'd finished serving as an actual police officer. The piece of work in question was a speculative teleplay entitled Knock Off Job. It concerned a murder inside a suburban police station, and presented every member of the shift, both uniform and CID, as potential suspects, none of them knowing who to trust. Now that I look back on it, it was very talkie: lots of tense conversations in dim corridors and cramped offices, lots of frank, fraught interviews, lots of suspicions being cast in every direction. It wouldn't work today simply because modern police stations are filled with CCTV, and the comings and goings of staff and non-staff are more carefully monitored. But the concept was of sufficient interest to the production team at The Bill to make them ask me to come in and see them. I accepted the invitation, and though I didn't realise it at the time, my life changed as a result. Read More

Happy Publication Day to Will Adams, whose fifth novel, Newton’s Fire, is out now. Will was kind enough to share the inspiration behind his new novel in the following piece, sent to us from a remote outpost in the Canary Islands, where he is currently hard at work on his next book…   Back in 2003, a Canadian academic called Stephen Snobelen gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph to promote a new BBC documentary on Sir Isaac Newton. The interview was about a prediction Newton had made, gleaned from his study of the Bible, that the world would come to an end in the year 2060. The story made the Telegraph’s front page, and immediately caused something of a stir. This was Newton, after all, Britain’s most iconic mathematician and scientist. So maybe there was something to it. Other papers and news organisations around the world quickly picked it up, and for a few days Newton’s 2060 prophecy became a global sensation, a hint of Armageddon in the air. But, as is the way of such things, people quickly forgot about it again. Read More

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… Read More

I’m always keen to expand my personal ‘Killer Reads’ library with new titles – especially titles I’ve been highly recommended. So, with the Christmas holidays approaching, I thought I’d add some new books to my ‘must-read’ list – and who better to ask for inspiration than one of our Killer crime & thriller writers. This week we’re treating you to the first of two instalments from crime and thriller duo, Voss & Edwards, authors of the unputdownable novels Catch your Death and Killing Cupid. This week Mark Edwards is sharing his five all-time favourite crime novels, so hold off sending your lists to Santa until next week as there will be plenty of brilliant reads for you to boost your Christmas lists with. Read More

Today is publication day for Stuart MacBride’s Partners in Crime: Two Logan & Steel Short Stories (‘Stramash’ and ‘DI Steel’s Bad Heir Day’). Perfect to fill in your lunch hour, liven up your commute, or enjoy of an eve over a glass of wine (though a tumbler of whisky might be more appropriate). Last month, Stuart MacBride did a Skype interview with student journalist Alicia Jensen for the Aberdeen University Student Newspaper, The Gaudie. Read on to find out what makes Aberdeen the perfect setting for a murder or three…     If Edinburgh is bipolar; Aberdeen is schizophrenic Stuart MacBride answers questions on why Aberdeen makes such a good setting for a gory murder mystery Why set a murder in Aberdeen? This is the first question in my Skype interview with Stuart MacBride, bestselling author of the Logan McRae series, and Birthdays for the Dead. Read More

This month sees our third blog entry from the incredible Paul Finch. The Former The Bill scriptwriter turned author is back this week with a sneak peek into his life as a journalist, a period in which Paul feels had a huge impact in becoming the author he is today...   People often ask me how it happened that I went from being a policeman to writing police stories. Well, the cross-over is not as straightforward as some may think. While I was in the police, I wrote almost no fiction at all. I had a yearning to write – I’d always written fiction as a youngster, and my father had been a professional author, but whenever the temptation came over me, I used to tell myself that I was too tired, too stressed and too busy obsessing about dreadful incidents in the real world – and for the most part that was probably true. But it’s also the case that I was being sucked into a radically different discipline. I was buried in a world of procedure and legalities, which came to completely dominate my daily thinking. It was near enough impossible to go home at night and put the job, or whatever case you’d been working on, out of your mind. These were serious affairs after all, and people’s lives and liberties might be at stake. This is something I’ve tried to bring into the Mark Heckenburg books in fact; the way police life can consume you. Even your recreation time tends to be spent with other police officers, or at least it often was for me, and usually such R&R consisted of drinking hard and yet again discussing the job. Anything else seemed frivolous. Read More