thriller

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

  Our No.1 bestselling author Stuart MacBride talks ‘Tartan Noir’ on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book Channel – a term being used to  describe the abundance of exceptional crime fiction coming out of mighty Scotland. MacBride also explains how music  really helps  to influence his characterisations and thrilling storylines. 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

Kimberley and Pete enjoy a cuppa One wonderfully sunny day earlier in the year, two members of the Marketing team strode out to meet Kimberley Chambers, her agent Tim and her typist Sue in Dagenham – but we were not simply meeting them for pie and mash, oh no, we were here with expert camera man Pete in order to film a video to give her readers a real taste of her latest book, The Schemer. No hard task, then.We all agreed to meet at Roy’s Pie and Mash shop, where the lovely staff gave us a cup of tea and settled down into it. By going back to Dagenham where Kimberley grew up and the book is set, we hoped to really capture a feel of the people and the place. Read More

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… Read More

Hello Killer Readers, As promised, here’s the fourth and final part of Lisa Brackman’s interview – she ends with talking a little about her background and how she ended up writing. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on it, and we hope you like YEAR OF THE TIGER,… Read More

Here’s the third instalment of Lisa Brackman’s interviews – final part to come very soon. YEAR OF THE TIGER is out now in paperback, enjoy this clip of her talking about her writing process and how she came to be published in the US and the UK.   Thankings, Killer Reads  … Read More

Thanks so much for all your comments and tweets on Lisa’s interview – YEAR OF THE TIGER is out in paperback tomorrow – so to celebrate, here’s a second interview clip in which she talks about writing characters and especially focusses on Ellie, the heroine of her debut… Read More

  Killer Reads Exclusive Alert!   An interview with the award-winning Lisa Brackman, author of YEAR OF THE TIGER: a game-changing new thriller set in modern China, in a world of underground artists, government conspiracies and paranoid revolutionaries. This is the first of four fascinating clips we’ll be bringing to… 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

Oxford, 1583. A place of learning. And murderous schemes.  England is rife with plots to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and return the country to the Catholic faith. Defending the realm through his network of agents, the Queen’s spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham works tirelessly to hunt down all traitors.  His… Read More