NEW ON OUR BLOG

We are proud to announce  the launch of The Twelve Days of Winter – an ebook story for every day.  The first, rather brilliant, story is A Partridge in a Pear Tree. At 49p, what are you waiting for??   Just listen what the people in the office have to… Read More

A collection of SIX Stuart MacBride books, including one that won’t be published until next year! To enter, simply answer this question: What is the protagonist of Stuart’s books called? We’ll give you a clue, it starts with L… Email you answer to killerreadscomp@harpercollins.co.uk along with your… Read More

As well as being our featured reviewer this week, as Gareth has written in with such a detailed review of Lucifer's Tears, we thought that we'd give it its very own blog post! Name: Gareth Rice Occupation: University Researcher and freelance writer Best detective/good guy: John Rebus/Dr. Gill Grissom Favourite place to read: Anywhere really but I prefer cafes that have a quiet hum or, my top floor apartment with a stunning vista of the city. Anything else you want to tell us? Reading crime fiction has taught me a lot about my own psychology and obsessions... Review of Lucifer's Tears With its cold landscapes a perfect setting for grisly tales of murder, 'Scandinavin noir' has been the inescapable genre of recent years. When reviewers search for a 'Scandinavin noir' icon they tend to come up with writers, such as Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, Ilkka Remes, Matti Joensuu and, more recently, Stieg Larsson. Enter Lucifer's Tears, James Thompson's second Inspector Kari Vaara novel which is a full-hearted stab at a sequel with more than an invigorating whiff of its brilliant predecessor, Snow Angels. The purgatorial sounding title comes from the first chapter, in which Vaara reflects on his home: "Finland. The ninth and innermost circle of hell. A frozen lake of blood and guilt formed from Lucifer's tears, turned to ice by the flapping of his leathery wings." We join Vaara in Helsinki where he has moved to from his home in the remote Finnish north because his wife, Kate, was offered an opportunity to advance her career in the most upmarket hotel in the capital. It's not long before Vaara and his sidekick, Milo, "a nervous puppy...who needs a firm hand to guide him", are dispatched to investigate a crime scene in the residential district of Töölö. They are faced with what seems like an open and shut case: the nude, dead body of a young woman, Iisa Fillipov, the wife of the Russian businessman Ivan Fillipov. She has been sadistically tortured. Her skin is marked with cigarette burns and she has been whipped viciously with a riding crop, and ultimately asphyxiated. Iisa's lover, an Estonian man called Rein Saar, woke up beside her in bed covered in her blood. Vaara is reluctant to arrest Saar and be done with it, contra his boss's, Jyri Ivalo, suggestion. This marks the start of well paced interwoven plot lines that never feels padded out, and make it difficult to gulp back the keenness to read on. Read More

In September, we gave four readers a chance to review Lucifer's Tears by James Thompson, a new name on the scandi-crime scene. So what did our readers think? Read on to find out... Helen Lowry writes: This is a novel featuring Inspector Kari Vaara, set in the freezing snow of Finland. A woman's body is found tortured and brutally murdered, with her lover lying next to her covered in blood. On the face of it, it looks straightforward, but Vaara isn't convinced he lover is the murderer, if only due to the fact that both parties had been tasered.   The woman's arrogant husband, Ivan Filippov, shows very little emotion at his wife's death and becomes a suspect in Vaara's eyes. The problem being, he is very well connected in the city and proves to be a more than worthy adversary of the detective. As the story moves on, Vaara discovers that Filippov is heavily into S & M and there are links with many of the city's great and good, and wealthy. Always good for a potential cover-up and lack of discretion. Be warned, the book does have its share of a brutality, not just with the murder, but with equally brutal sex. The descriptions of S & M are fairly graphic and not for the faint hearted or timid.   As if one brutal murder isn't enough to solve, Vaara's boss asks him to investigate allegations regarding one of Finland's war heroes as a possible war criminal. The problem being that the man in question was in the war with Vaara's beloved grandfather, who might also have played a part in this. At the same time, his heavily pregnant wife's brother and sister are over from the States. John, her brother, being a problem all of his own. His new detective partner is also a bit on the reckless side, adding to his problems.   Vaara suffers from excruciating migraines, controlled by pills and drink, and he doesn't know whether this is down to all the stress he is under or something more sinister. His neurologist brother makes him a swift appointment for an MRI scan.   I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and can quite readily state it has that page turning quality. Apart from the main murder plot, there are plenty of sub-stories to keep the reader's interest, and to wonder if they all tie in as the book draws to a conclusion. Plus, an interesting aside is an all too brief history of Finland, told as part of the narration.   Well recommended. Read More

The Easy Road to Writing Success   As with most things in life it's the details that count. My first novel, a thriller titled, The Istanbul Puzzle, is coming out January 19. And I'm as excited as a puppy with his first friend.   I recommend the feeling to any aspiring writer. Or to anyone in fact. It's the recognition you've always wanted and the dream you never told anyone about. Ok, I hear you think, how did he get here? Was it really that easy?   The answer is yes, depending on how you view the small matter of time. My journey went like this:   In 1998 I bought a book on screenwriting. It advised writing a book first. I started writing a novel in the middle of 2000. I've written almost every day from then until now. I reckon I'm a slow learner. You'll probably pick it up a lot faster. I mean who takes that long to learn how to write?   I finished my first book in 2005 and started on The Istanbul Puzzle. My first book has never been published. That's for the best. I sent it to a paid for editor in 2006 for a review. I had to sit down as I read it. I couldn't write for a week after. Maybe it was because I could only afford her cheapest review service, but she certainly didn't spare the knives. Though why she went on for so many pages I still don't know. A perverse generosity, I suppose.   But from 2005-2010 I took every point she'd made and started to work on my writing. I read about 50 books on the craft of writing, attended conferences (Winchester do a great one) and night courses. Then I started getting up at 3-4AM to write. I've been doing that ever since. Don't even ask what that does to your life.   Then I joined Authonomy to see what Harper Collins were doing online, but I couldn't submit anything as I'd already sent The Istanbul Puzzle to agents and it didn't feel right having it on Authonmy at the same time. But I read everything on the site and on every other writer's site I could find. Eventually my wife wanted to get me an addiction counsellor. But she never gave up on me. Read More

How I researched Hide Me by Ava McCarthy   Did you hear the one about the Irishman, the badger and the pygmy shrew? Apparently, they all originally came to Ireland on a boat from the Basque country. Well, maybe not the same boat. I stumbled across this entertaining piece of science while researching my latest thriller, Hide Me. For various reasons, I had flung my Irish heroine, Harry Martinez, into the Basque country of northern Spain, and now here it seemed that the Irish and the Basques had ancient and unique genetic links. Who knew? Research is always fun, but uncovering nuggets like these is what makes it so addictive. Setting is important to me. The best books are created when the writer knows her story world in intimate detail and understands the kind of people that populate it. So when I sent Harry to San Sebastián, naturally I went along for the ride. And so did my husband and children. In our house, for ‘research', read ‘family holiday'. But being a writer on location is nothing like being a tourist. Sure, we visited some local attractions, but mostly I looked for places where I might kill people. Forests, mountains, tall buildings. Cliff edges were always full of potential. In San Sebastián, I had rich pickings: steep river banks; thrashing water; the churning ocean driven by wind blasting across the Bay of Biscay. With my plot scenes in mind, I dragged my young family to graveyards and hilltops, backstreets and alleyways. We staked out the local police station, photographing it from all sides. A uniformed officer with a gun eventually asked us to move along. Read More

Welcome to 77 Shadow Street, where every 38 years a terror descends…. December 1897: A family abducted, never to be found December 1935: A house hold slaughtered in their beds December 1973: Terrified workmen see a glimpse of hell December this year… is 77… Read More

The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill Wolf Hadda's life has been a fairytale. From humble origins as a Cumbrian woodcutter's son, he has risen to become a hugely successful entrepreneur, happily married to the girl of his dreams. A knock on the door one morning ends it all. Universally reviled, thrown into prison while protesting his innocence, abandoned by friends and family, Wolf retreats into silence. Seven years later prison psychiatrist Alva Ozigbo makes the breakthrough. Wolf begins to talk and under her guidance gets parole, returning to his rundown family home in rural Cumbria. Read More

Sue Gunnee! Congratulations, Sue! We’ll be in touch to let you know how to collect your tickets.   Thank you to everyone who entered,… Read More

For the bargain price of only £1 a vote, Dundee University’s cutting-edge new  forensics centre could be named after HC author Stuart MacBride. Read More

In the spirit of Halloween I asked the team to answer the following question: What book would you never read alone in an empty house? Don't forget to look below for your chance to win two of our most terrifying reads...   Laura: I have started Misery by Stephen King many times. I have only ever finished it once, in broad daylight, in a park full of people. My reason for this was simple. Passers-by could come to my aid should Annie Wilkes decide to jump out from behind a tree and smash a typewriter over my legs before dragging me off into the wilderness. When reading Misery you cannot help but picture the film. But I urge you to read the book. It is the kind of read that has you on the edge of your seat from start to finish as obsessive fan Annie flits between the personas of, carer, tormentor and would-be murderer to author Paul Sheldon. The build-up of suspense between Annie and Paul is staggering and when you reach the end I guarantee that your heart will be in your mouth. Helen: Anything by Neil White! I love Neil's books, I really do, but he sure does know how to set up a gruesome murder scene. He's a master of suspense, and as his killers stalk their victims, you know that someone's about to meet a seriously sticky end. I'm currently working on his new book, Beyond Evil, and it's opening scene stayed with me long into the dark October nights. Imagine, if you will, the victim tied to a bed. Behind him, a wall daubed in his own blood. And his body, with blood, guts, bones and sinew on show to the world, after having had a full autopsy carried out on it. Whilst he was still alive... Chilling? Gruesome? Oh yes. But I couldn't wait to find out who was behind it all. Brilliant stuff. Hannah: When I'm not checking every single cupboard and wardrobe in the house for skulking murderers, double-checking under my bed for the odd rapist, closing the curtains tight so that the lone eye of a madman can't peep through, and convincing myself that I can hear breathing coming from underneath my bed, I am reading crime and thriller fiction. I can't help it, I'm obsessed, and nothing will dissuade me from plunging into the latest in the genre. Read More

What is it? From comedy to corpses, this will be a night to remember as two of the UK's top crime writers, Stuart MacBride and Mark Billingham, chat to the audience about their careers and their experience in crime-writing. Where is it? Victoria Hall, Reading Museum and Town Hall When is it? Saturday 12th November from 7 to 8pm To win two tickets, which have been kindly donated by our good friends at Reading Crime Festival, then simply click on the button below to read an extract from Stuart MacBride's latest ebook, Sawbones, and answer the following question: Read More