Reviews

‘an intriguing read . . . keeps the reader guessing . . . a lot to enjoy in this romp through the Cambridge Commons . . . a strong sense of place and a narrative style that is both energetic and engaging.’ [Dead Letters]

- Margaret Murphy, SHERLOCK

Far From the Tree

Posted on May 31, 2014 in Andrew Solomon, Far from the Tree | No Comments

Andrew Solomon set out to study families in which the children were very different from the parents, children born deaf, dwarfs, autistic children, children with severe physical disabilities, prodigies, schizophrenics, and others including children who turned out to be criminals or were conceived through rape. And what an extraordinary book he has produced. The full title […]

Euro Crime

Euro Crime

I bought two books at Crimefest. One was the excellent Euro Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to European Crime Fiction, Film and TV, by Barry Forshaw, which was launched at Crimefest. Barry knows pretty much everything there is to know about contemporary crime fiction and he moderated one of the most interesting panels at Crimefest, also […]

Leaving York without a book?

Yesterday I went up to York for the day to meet my friend and web designer, Madeleine, for lunch. My train got in an hour before hers so I wandered around the shops, feeling nostalgic for the days when I met my mother there. Some of the places we used to go to don’t exist […]

Cosy crime-writers?

Cosy crime-writers?

It was a pleasure to find myself moderating a Crimefest panel featuring some of my favourite writers. From the left it is Christopher Fowler, me, Jill Paton Walsh, Helen Smith, and Martin Walker. The subject was ‘The Contemporary Cosy: Is there Life Left in the Golden Age?’ and I asked everyone if they considered themselves […]

Invisible

Invisible

Posted on May 17, 2014 in Accent Press, Invisible | 6 Comments

It’s always a red letter today for a writer when a new novel comes out, so I am delighted that my new novel, Invisible, published by Accent Press, is now up on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1t1Kcsm. At £1.82 it is a snip. The paperback will be available shortly.The roots of this novel are in a trip that my husband […]

Reading on the train

This, for me, is one of the great pleasures in life: a long train journey and a good book is a prospect to relish. It wasn’t a very long journey from Sheffield to Bristol and it involved a tedious change at Birmingham, one of the most inconvenient and dreary stations I know. But I did […]

Desert Island Crime Fiction

I’m off to Crimefest – see crimefest.com – on Thursday where I am moderating a panel on the Contemporary Cosy. This has set me thinking about my all-time favourite crime novels and I’ve drawn up a desert island selection of eight classic crime novels or collections of stories that I’d be very happy to read again. In […]

How many books are too many books?

Posted on May 9, 2014 in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

I am tempted to say that you can’t have too many books, but that is patently not true, unless you are the British Library, or the Library of Congress or some other copyright library. I don’t know how many my husband and I have, but it must run into quite a few thousand. Every time […]

Crime-writer Quentin Bates guests

Crime-writer Quentin Bates guests

Posted on May 5, 2014 in Cold Steal, Frozen Out, Iceland, Quentin Bates | 2 Comments

I’ve been a fan of Quentin Bates’s Icelandic mysteries since the first one, Frozen Out, came out in 2011. His latest, Cold Steal, was published on 1 May so this seemed an ideal time to interview him for the blog. I began by asking him to tell us a little bit about his new novel. […]

Shakespeare Knew Everything

Yesterday in Cambridge I was missing a dear friend who died recently. I went into Heffer’s Bookshop (best crime fiction stock of anywhere that I know) and my attention was caught by a book on one of the tables at the front: Poems That Make Grown Men Cry. I’d heard it mentioned on Radio 4. […]