A fantastic online experience to share with you all today – a virtual tour of The Pendleton, an  apartment block standing at the address of 77 SHADOW STREET. A place with a dark and disturbing past. A place where every 38 years a terror descends on anyone who stays… Read More

The BBC have just put their 1977 Lively Arts documentary about Len Deighton online for the first time. If you've yet to discover the genius of Len, here is a little bit of background on the man behind The Ipcress File. Len Deighton was born in London in 1929. At the age of seventeen he became a photographer attached to the RAF Special Investigations Branch. Following his discharge in 1949 he did a variety of jobs and in 1952 won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. His writing career began with The Ipcress File which was a spectacular success and was made into a classic film starring Michael Caine. Read More

HarperCollins has launched BookGig, a publisher agnostic online events platform that aims to connect authors with new and existing readers following the growth in live author events. Want to meet your favourite author? Get a book signed? Hear them debate the merits of cosy crime versus serial killers? The… Read More

From Rachel Abbott: I’m enjoying my journey as a self-published author very much and that’s partly because one of the great things about the self-publishing community is how supportive indie authors are of each other. We often compare notes, and offer each other advice. But I don't really know many traditionally published authors, so I was delighted to be introduced recently to Paul Finch, whose novel Stalkers has been in the Kindle top 100 for over a hundred days. We had a chat about the similarities and differences in our experiences. Read More

Isabel Allende’s gripping and clever thriller, Ripper, hits stores today. http://amzn.to/1e0CP02 For Amanda Martín and her friends, Ripper was all just a game. But when security guard Ed Staton is found dead in the middle of a school gym, the murder presents a mystery that… Read More

The author of our current 'Featured Title' David Kessler gives us an insight into his world KillerReads: When did you start writing? David Kessler: When I was 15 and on the verge of dropping out of school in the early seventies.  I wrote a screenplay with a singing role for myself because I had dreams of being the next Donny Osmond.  I sent it to my mother's cousin - the film director Clive Donner.  He gave me some useful advice, but of course it was an early juvenile effort and nothing came of the project. However, having written it I discovered that I had a talent for creative writing - as distinct from singing or songwriting! And so I carried on writing from then on - and haven't stopped since. I should also acknowledge the earlier influence of my older sister Simone, who was an avid reader and writer.  There was a certain amount of sibling rivalry between us and I had already made some preliminary efforts at writing even when I was still in school to compete with her.  Also I should acknowledge the encouragement and positive influence of two of my English teachers: Mr McLaughlin and Mr Marx. Read More

WATERSTONES AND HARPERCOLLINS JOIN FORCES FOR A LITERARY FESTIVAL FIRST We’ve been keeping this a secret for a while but now we can finally share the news with you! KillerReads (that’s us!) and Waterstones are hosting the first Killer Crime Festival–the only combined virtual and traditional literary… Read More

It’s difficult to recall exactly when the idea behind STALKERS first came to mind. It was quite a few years ago now – I recall that much. I’m pretty sure I was having a brain-storming session at the time, taking my dog for a walk with Dictaphone in hand, trying to come up with as many high concepts as possible – either for story, novel or script.   When STALKERS first jumped into my head, I remember being quite shaken because it was so grotesque a notion that I couldn’t see it working outside the horror genre, and even then it might have been deemed gratuitous. However, the more I thought about it, the more I began to see how it could also fit into a police thriller context - that way it could be more about the investigation than the crimes themselves. Read More

Wondering what to read this year? Look no further. The Killer Reads Team have put pen to paper to tell you what we’re most excited about publishing and reading in 2013.   Emad Akhtar, Assistant Editor for Crime and Thriller, says: The books I'm most excited about publishing: The Tower by Simon Toyne, marks the end of the Sancti trilogy, and will definitely be an event for all the people who have been following this story from Sanctus. You can read any of them on their own, to be honest – they are just amazing, slick, satisfying thrillers which take you to really unexpected places. I don’t think anyone’s quite doing what he’s doing with the genre; a really special mix of ancient themes and cutting-edge ideas.   And of course, The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. If you’ve been following any of the buzz building around this dark, hypnotic serial killer story, then you’ll know that this is one to put everything on hold for. Lauren is a really rare talent, who can bend her imagination to any genre, shaping and mashing-up stories into highly original novels which no-one else could write. I think she’ll win a lot of new fans this year with The Shining Girls, if the early reviews are anything to go by.   Both these books are out in April and if you don’t read at least one of them, I will hold you in contempt forever. Read More

  Location has played an integral role in all my novels, whether it be the ravished shores of Thailand during the 2004 tsunami in The Atlas of Us or the eerie underwater world of submerged forests in My Sister’s Secret.   And it’s no different with my latest novel… Read More

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        Where did the idea for The Missing Twin come from? Strangely, the idea came from a number of different things – people I met, stories I read in the papers and saw online and a Mediterranean location that inspired me. All of these factors were… Read More