NEW ON OUR BLOG

Alex Barclay on big crime in a small place

Colorado is where people go to disappear. It was a throwaway remark from a detective friend, but as soon as I heard it, I knew I wanted to hide a killer there. I planned to give Colorado a special guest appearance in a New York-based novel. Instead, I created a whole new series, with a new heroine, FBI Special Agent Ren Bryce, working for a violent crime squad based in Denver. Colorado deserved a starring role. What I needed next was a small-town crime scene. And it was then that I discovered what came to be one of my favourite places in the world: Breckenridge, a small and beautiful resort town ninety miles west of Denver. I love a big crime in a small place, and with Blood Runs Cold, the first Ren Bryce novel, the body of an FBI agent is found close to Breckenridge on a snow-covered mountain called Quandary Peak. Read More

James Smythe vs. Stephen King: The Challenge Begins

You must of heard of James Smythe by now. What? You haven't?! Even though we've been banging on and on and on about him? Well, in that case, let us refresh your memory. James Smythe is a fantastic new addition to our brood, and his incredible apocalyptic thriller, The Testimony, is one of our top picks for this year.  And obviously you will have heard of Stephen King - in fact, in our 'All the books you shouldn't read home alone' article, his name came up again and again.  Why are we telling you all this? We'll let James explain...   "My name's James, and I'm a writer. (I feel a bit like I'm in a self-help group when I tell people that...) I've just had a novel called THE TESTIMONY published by Blue Door - it's an apocalyptic story about the world hearing what they perceive to be the voice of God, told through the testimonies of 26 different characters from every walk of life. Each character brings something different to the table, be they priests, murderers or businessmen, and it's through their eyes that the reader watches the repercussions of hearing the voice of the deity. And next year, there's two novels: one from HarperVoyager, called THE EXPLORER (about death and astronauts) and another tentatively titled THE MACHINE from Blue Door again (about post-traumatic stress disorder and memories). Read More

Final part – Lisa Brackman on her background

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

Writing and Getting Published – Lisa Brackman

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

Lisa Brackman: On Ellie, the heroine of YEAR OF THE TIGER

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

On China: An interview with Year of the Tiger author Lisa Brackman

  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

Writing Bad: Simon Toyne's fascination with creating a good villain

Writing Bad   Recently my son Stan (5) discovered something it took me until I was about 15 to figure out. He’d been playing a lot of Lego Batman on his Nintendo DS over the Easter break – I know I’m a model parent – and I noticed he’d stopped playing as Batman or Robin and switched to the Riddler, ClayFace and the Joker. When I asked why, his fingers kept twitching on the keys and his unblinking eyes never left the screen. ‘Bad guys are cool,’ he said.   Of course he’s right. Bad guys are cool and thrillers and crime novels exploit this innate attraction to the darker shades of the human animal. As readers we love to sink into the murky swamp of a dark story and peer over the shoulders of monsters as they go about their terrible deeds in the tense and hopeful knowledge that good will ultimately triumph and the monsters will be slain so that order is restored by the last page. As writers we spend more time in this swamp than most, mining the darker parts of ourselves in order to breathe life into the villains that will in turn breathe life into our stories. Read More

Exclusive letters from Agatha Christie's Grand Tour

In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a 10-month voyage around the British Empire with her husband as part of a trade mission to promote the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition. Now, for the first time in 90 years we are able to see her extensive and previously unpublished letters, which are accompanied by hundreds of photos taken on her portable camera as well as memorabilia Agatha collected along her journey. This eye-opening trip, which took place just after only her second novel had been published (the first leg of the tour to South Africa is very clearly the inspiration for the book she wrote immediately afterwards, The Man in the Brown Suit). The letters are full of tales of seasickness and sunburn, motor trips, surf boarding and dinners with dignitaries all the way from Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada.   Agatha’s first letters to her mother can be seen below, these are from the first leg of her journey from Madeira to Cape Town.   R.M.S ‘Kildonan Castle’ First day: 20 January 1922 Darling mummy Everything very comfortable – nice cabin with lots of room. I do love my violets. Take care of yourself, darling – I do love you so much. Will write again from Madeira. Your loving Agatha Read More