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In the spirit of Halloween I asked the team to answer the following question: What book would you never read alone in an empty house? Don't forget to look below for your chance to win two of our most terrifying reads...   Laura: I have started Misery by Stephen King many times. I have only ever finished it once, in broad daylight, in a park full of people. My reason for this was simple. Passers-by could come to my aid should Annie Wilkes decide to jump out from behind a tree and smash a typewriter over my legs before dragging me off into the wilderness. When reading Misery you cannot help but picture the film. But I urge you to read the book. It is the kind of read that has you on the edge of your seat from start to finish as obsessive fan Annie flits between the personas of, carer, tormentor and would-be murderer to author Paul Sheldon. The build-up of suspense between Annie and Paul is staggering and when you reach the end I guarantee that your heart will be in your mouth. Helen: Anything by Neil White! I love Neil's books, I really do, but he sure does know how to set up a gruesome murder scene. He's a master of suspense, and as his killers stalk their victims, you know that someone's about to meet a seriously sticky end. I'm currently working on his new book, Beyond Evil, and it's opening scene stayed with me long into the dark October nights. Imagine, if you will, the victim tied to a bed. Behind him, a wall daubed in his own blood. And his body, with blood, guts, bones and sinew on show to the world, after having had a full autopsy carried out on it. Whilst he was still alive... Chilling? Gruesome? Oh yes. But I couldn't wait to find out who was behind it all. Brilliant stuff. Hannah: When I'm not checking every single cupboard and wardrobe in the house for skulking murderers, double-checking under my bed for the odd rapist, closing the curtains tight so that the lone eye of a madman can't peep through, and convincing myself that I can hear breathing coming from underneath my bed, I am reading crime and thriller fiction. I can't help it, I'm obsessed, and nothing will dissuade me from plunging into the latest in the genre. Read More

What is it? From comedy to corpses, this will be a night to remember as two of the UK's top crime writers, Stuart MacBride and Mark Billingham, chat to the audience about their careers and their experience in crime-writing. Where is it? Victoria Hall, Reading Museum and Town Hall When is it? Saturday 12th November from 7 to 8pm To win two tickets, which have been kindly donated by our good friends at Reading Crime Festival, then simply click on the button below to read an extract from Stuart MacBride's latest ebook, Sawbones, and answer the following question: Read More

Daniel Blake certainly thought so! Read his article on why he chose to use a natural disaster as the setting for his latest novel, City of Sins. The moment I first saw footage of Hurricane Katrina devastating New Orleans, I knew I wanted to use the tragedy as the setting for a thriller. If that sounds like exploitation or some literary version of disaster tourism, it's not supposed to. It's simply that crime fiction, by its nature, deals with tragedy more often than it does with triumph - and tragedies don't get much more resonant than the destruction of a great city. In the case of New Orleans, that resonance was particularly poignant. Even those who've never been there feel they have an emotional connection to the place. Think of New Orleans, and you think of many things. You think of partying - Mardi Gras, the French Quarter, the Big Easy. You think of the music - jazz, blues, Zydeco. You think of the writers - Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Anne Rice. You think of food and drink - gumbo, beignets, daiquiris. If you're a strict Christian, you might think of the city as a repository of sin - the Southern Decadence gay festival, the sex shows of Bourbon Street, the shadowy mysteries of voodoo. And whatever your faith, you'd have to admit New Orleans has a darker side, and in spades. One of the highest murder rates in America, a Third World public infrastructure, and levels of official corruption and political intrigue which would have made the Borgias green with envy. In short, New Orleans is humanity writ large: our excesses, our triumphs, our follies. Which, of course, makes it a great place to set a thriller. Read More

Genevieve is currently working with the Crime and Thriller department for two weeks in order to gain work experience. Look out for another article from her on her experience in our department.     "Crime novels are about life, death, love, loss and broken minds" Alex Barclay   I read a fascinating article in the Irish Examiner about female crime fiction writers and it got me thinking…why are women so attracted to this particular genre?   The presumption is that men, seen as naturally more aggressive, are more inclined to read novels of crime, violence, blood, guts and gore. But it seems as if the opposite is true.   The article, Murder, She Wrote by author and journalist Declan Burke, explores the opinions of four of the leading lights of the current wave of Irish crime writing - Alex Barclay, Arlene Hunt, Niamh O’Connor and Ava McCarthy. All women who prove that the female author is very often deadlier than the male.   One of the explanations given for this gravitation towards the more sinister side of fiction is due to what Barclay sees as “a compulsion to understand” a broken mind; a need to know how the darker side of humanity works. Perhaps the reason for this attraction is that crime fiction gives women an opportunity to explore the psychological motivations of a killer in the safe confines of the pages of a book. Read More

Obviously we were SERIOUSLY chuffed when this landed on our desks, so for all Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro fans, we thought we'd share this with you! But as you are incredibly busy people, we thought we'd also pull out the best quote for you here: 'This is one devilishly good read full of satisfying scares.'  We have one word for you. WOW. If that doesn't make you want to read it, we don't know what will. The Strain trilogy opened with an authentic wow moment: a Boeing 777 arrives at JFK airport with all but four of the passengers dead in their seats. The flashlight beams of the first responders "registered dully in the dead jewels of their open eyes." Not much later these corpses begin to rise from their morgue slabs, and a plague of blood-hungry predators overwhelms New York. The first hundred pages of The Strain is a sustained exercise in terror that held this reader in spellbound delight, because del Toro and Hogan write with crisp authenticity about both the fantastical (vampires) and the completely real (New York City, with all its odd nooks and crannies). Read More

Click here to read an extract and watch the trailer for Michael Crichton’s terrifying new novel. https://killerreads.com/micro/… Read More

A sociopath has murdered a family by locking them in their home and setting it ablaze. Thankfully, the law is looming and justice is at hand. Should the villain ...    A. Be shot dead by a police sniper?    B. Blunder into a pit of agitated cobras with no escape?    C. Be imprisoned for life with zero hope of parole?     Read More

Jack the Ripper. The name means Victorian England. It means foggy streets and the glint of a silver knife. There's something almost romantic about Jack.   This, when you think about it, is one of the most disturbing things possible. It would be exactly like saying there's something romantic about Fred West or Ian Brady. The fifth murder of the Ripper series, the murder of Mary Kelly, is still considered one of the worst crime scenes in English history. When I started work on The Name of the Star, I was trying to think of the person you would least want to return from the grave and roam London, unseen. Jack fit the bill. I was always fascinated with Jack the Ripper. I grew up in Philadelphia loving English mystery novels. I read two Agatha Christies a day. The first book I remember reading in its entirety was The Hound of the Baskervilles. Jack the Ripper was more of that-but real! Read More

John Curran and Hercule Poirot take a look at "the original evidence" - including one of Agatha Christie's own writing notebooks - at Paignton Library during Agatha Christie Festival. Congratulations to our very own Agatha Christie expert! John Curran triumphed in the awards at Bouchercon a few nights ago by winning not one but two presitigious crime-writing awards for his writing debut, Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks. To celebrate we've decided not only to give you an exclusive look at David Suchet's foreword for the paperback of John's new book, Agatha Christie's Murder in the Making, but also to give you an extract from the book which looks at some of the ideas that Agatha Christie never used in her novels.    KILLER READS EXCLUSIVE: David Suchet's Foreword When John Curran's book Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks was published in 2009, the reading public was given something very rare: perhaps the most complete document for any author of the notes and sketches of their novels. Reading the book was like studying the preliminary sketches of any great artist, and in doing so we automatically found ourselves searching for clues. It gave us an insight into the workings of Agatha Christie's mind - plus the gift of two new unpublished Poirot stories! Read More

Amazon.co.uk Widgets… Read More

A little treat to brighten up your Wednesday afternoon!… Read More

One of the qualities I most value in music, as in books, is a sense of mystery. In choosing my seven desert island records, I've tried to pick tracks which have something of that mysterious quality. In some cases, they even have at least a tenuous connection with crime fiction. In that regard, Warren Zevon's the most obvious choice. His song titles have been repeatedly borrowed for crime novels and films. He collaborated with crime writers such as Carl Hiassen. He was a friend of Ross MacDonald and had unfulfilled ambitions to write a crime novel himself. Many of his songs feel like excerpts from that unwritten fiction. I've chosen one of the most personal, ‘Desperadoes Under the Eaves' from the Warren Zevon album. It's a song about one of the lower points of Zevon's career, when he was struggling with a lack of commercial success and growing alcoholism, but it's full of mordant wit and terrific lines and somehow still manages to end on a note of hope. Read More