crime fiction

Mark Sennen is the author of many books including the recently published Tell Tale. Today he shares 5 crime novels with setting at the forefront. The TV series Broardchurch has, apparently, led to an increase in people wanting to move to Dorset on account of the countryside. ‘Picturesque, haunting scenery’… Read More

We’re thrilled to welcome No.1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz to the Killer Reads blog today, to talk about his new novel, The City… Gerda, my wife and first reader of my manuscripts, is an honest critic of my work, and a good one. Read More

Some of the best Agatha Christie murder mysteries have been released today with a striking new cover design. Following the stunning new cover interpretations of Murder on The Orient Express, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and Curtain, these gorgeous new jackets will be a great addition to your Christie library. Read More

Howdy folks, and thanks for letting me take the dais. The topic is Carson Ryder’s recent move from Mobile, Alabama, to South Florida. Because I can’t speak into microphones without them squealing like a kicked pig, I’m gonna take my beer to the edge of the stage,… Read More

As you may know, to celebrate the paperback release of the final instalment in the fantastic SANCTUS trilogy we built a towering tower, using numerous copies of The Tower. Five days and sixty-five guesses later, we can reveal that the number of books used to construct our… 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

With the recent paperback release of Sorry by Zoran Drvenkar, a book that each member of the Killer Reads team has been hooked on at some point over the last year, his editor decided it was about time to spend a few extra minutes at the end of a meeting with Zoran to ask him the questions that the KR team have been wanting to know. Below is the result. So, if you're a fan of Zoran, you've recently read Sorry or you just want to know how crime thriller authors manage to come up with such spine-tingling plots then delve into the following Q&A.     1. What prompted you to write your first novel? Read More

As we are leading up to Halloween I decided it was the prime opportunity to ask the Killer Reads team what books they have each recently read that gave them nightmares. Being a group that love thrillers, crime and anything that means you spend the next week leaving the lights on just so you can sleep, they all proceeded to pull at least one book out of their bag that had given them the heebie jeebies. So we thought we would share them with you so that you, like us, can start preparing your scare-o-meters for the ever looming fright night...   Blacklands by Belinda Bauer Chosen by Emad Akhtar   Blacklands is a story that unsettled me for a long time – it’s an unusually absorbing and affecting story. This is partly because Blacklands, as Belinda Bauer says in her afterword, ‘was never intended to be a crime novel’. It began as a way of exploring ‘the impact of crimes such as Avery’s, how they affect people for years, lifetimes – maybe even generations’. Read More

Former The Bill scriptwriter turned author, Paul Finch, tells us how his time working for the Manchester police force was the starting block for his passion of crime fiction writing. Read Paul's second instalment into the killer reads diary...   There’s no question that my police service gave me an excellent grounding from which to write crime fiction. It’s not just about procedure, you see – it’s an innate understanding of the police officer’s role in society, and more importantly, the role the police may play in his or her life.   Being a cop is not like any other work. You can’t just put it away at the end of your shift. By its very nature, the job can alienate you from everyone you know. It can depress you, frighten you, outrage you. But by the same token it can empower you, and be massively rewarding. Above all though, it’s a weird occupation – where the complexity of experience can truly be stranger than fiction. And this air of the unreal is something I feel honour-bound to try and bring to my crime-writing, particularly in my forthcoming trilogy of cop thrillers from Avon Books.   But where does having actually been a cop leave you as a crime writer? 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

Stockholm, Sweden On a summer’s evening a young woman’s body is discovered aboard an abandoned boat. The likely cause of death is drowning, but her clothes are completely dry. A man is found hung in his apartment. His death looks like suicide, although there is nothing to climb… Read More

When we asked our beautiful New York based crime writer Alafair Burke, where she gained her passion and experience for all-things-crime we weren't expecting the incredible behind the (crime) scenes story she was about to tell. From childhood to her newest book, Never Tell, the article below uncovers why Alafair is just so good at writing crime:   Where it all began... It all began in Alafair's childhood. Her parents moved the family in the late 1970's from the chaos of a changing southern Florida to a supposedly quiet and provincial neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas. The moving boxes had just been unpacked when Wichita police announced a connection between seven unsolved murders of women and children. The man who claimed responsibility called himself BTK, a gruesome acronym, short for "Bind, Torture, Kill." The Burke's new home fell squarely within the serial killer's stalking territory. Like other children in Wichita in that era, Alafair learned to check the phone lines to make sure they weren't cut, to keep the basement door locked at all times, and to barricade herself in the bathroom with the phone if she had to call 911. Read More