Competition

This week we have a brilliant opportunity for 5 lucky readers to win a copy of Avon's debut novel from author Michael Russell, The City of Shadows.    Michael Russell on writing ‘The City of Shadows’ This book began as a conversation with an Irish film producer about the strange position Ireland had during the Second World War, supposedly neutral but neutral in a very odd way. When German airmen crashed in the Republic they were interned for the duration of the war; when Allied airmen crashed they were given a cup of tea and put on a bus to Belfast. Dublin was not only a city where German and British spies sat across Bewley’s Café from one another and drank together in Grafton Street pubs, it was also a place where the future of Ireland depended as much on the outcome of the war as did the future of the whole of Europe. That conversation brought together many years of writing detective fiction for television and an interest in the events of the thirties and forties that shaped the world we live in now. How did Irish Read More

Hello and Happy Halloween from the Killer Reads team. In the spirit of today’s festivities (and also the release of the new Bond movie), my question to the KR team this morning was “Who’s your favourite bad guy?” Read on for their brilliant answers and your chance to win a special treat...   Sarah Hodgson: Blofeld remains the all-time classic supervillain. As well as vast wealth and far-reaching influence, he also has a very cool cat.   Kate Stephenson: Best villain (not sure it’s correct to say my favourite, because I hated this guy with the passion of a thousand suns): Col. Hans Landa as played by Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds. That apple strudel scene with Shosanna – so incredibly unsettling. Actually, just all the scenes with him in them. Such a talented actor. Read More

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." Read More

  You can say you’re sorry. You can say it a hundred times. But to the dead it doesn’t mean very much.   Bestselling author Zoran Drvenkar has written one of the most original and spine-chilling books that you will ever read. To give you a taster… Read More

This week sees our Killer Reader Kate Stephenson (pictured right) asking for your views on modern Twisted Thrillers Vs. the classic Murder Mystery... Earlier this year at the Oxford Lit Fest, Sophie Hannah and Simon Brett discussed the respective merits of the dark and twisted new school and the cosy old school of murder mysteries in a panel entitled Murder Mystery: Blood Bath or Brain Teaser? Has crime fiction become too gory? It’s a question hotly debated amongst readers and writers alike. Some hark back to the masters of the cosies like Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, and despair that contemporary crime fiction has gone too far, indulging in graphic violence – particularly the torture of women and children – for sensationalist purposes. Others don’t have a problem with it, being that it is fiction, after all. The authors are not committing the violent crimes they describe, nor inciting readers to do so. And surely we’re all consenting adults, making our own reading choices – if what you’re reading offends you, all you need to do is put the book down. Read More

We have a little competition for you to take part in with the opportunity for 8 lucky readers to get their hands on a copy of S.J. Parris's Sacrilege.   Summer, 1584: the Protestant Prince William of Orange has been assassinated by a fanatical Catholic, and there are whispers that Queen Elizabeth will be next. Fear haunts the streets of London, and plague is driving many citizens away. Giordano Bruno, radical philosopher and spy, chooses to remain, only to find that someone is following him through the city  As Bruno begins his hunt for the real killer, he is drawn into the heart of a sinister conspiracy hiding in the shadow of England’s holiest shrine…  In the pursuit of power, nothing is sacred… Read More

The terrifying new novel by Jilliane Hoffman is here, and the beginning is so good that we can’t keep it to ourselves any longer.* To give you an even bigger incentive to read it, we’ve agreed to enter anyone who shares the extract on Facebook into a competition to win… Read More

Q & A with Zoran Drvenkar, author of SORRY: The new thriller that 'surprises, shocks and thrills from start to finish' (Sunday Express) What did you want to be at 5, 13 and 20 years of age? I was mainly struggling with trying to be myself, so I really didn’t think much about being someone else. I started reading at 5 and that’s when the world opened for me. When I was 13, I wrote my first poem. Kitsch met hormones whilst connecting frontally with drama. I loved it and I felt like a genius, almost untouchable. Soon I turned to horror stories and left poems that rhymed behind as soon as I opened my first Bukowski. Other kids open beer bottles, cigarette packs, dirty magazines, I was addicted to books from day one and Bukowski was a nice step in the right direction. From 15 until 22, I was copying everything I read, learning the trade from writers by mimicking them and slowly, very slowly finding my own voice. My head was a melting pot, all the stories I have read were tumbling around in there and something new surfaced on paper.   What prompted you to write your first novel? There were so many books and ideas and plot twists planted in my brain, that I had to do something - rob a bank, start a cooking class, climb a mountain. I never finished school and hated the time it stole from me as much as I hated the thought to be interested in things you cannot be interested in when you are 12 - like chemistry and mathematics and why a curve does this and that and why worms have their heads next to their asses. After reading every book that came close to me I turned very fast onto the road of writing. I was allowed to think and write and express what I wanted, without limits, without rules. I could bleed out my heart or I could be cruel as hell. It was possible. You can’t say no to that. Read More