CrimeFest 2024: Not All Work: The Private Lives of Protagonists

  Friday, 10 May
09:00 - 09:50

The Panel are Judi Daykin, Paul Durston,
Kate London, Stella Oni,
and the participating Moderator is Caro Ramsay.

Judi Daykin, born in Yorkshire, has lived, worked and made theatre in Norfolk for over forty years. She completed her MA in Creative Writing (Crime Fiction) at the UEA in 2019 and joined Joffe Books in 2020. Her DS Sara Hirst novels are gritty police procedurals set in Norfolk amongst the people, villages and special venues that Judi loves. Book six, The Wild Thyme Farm Murder, was released in April 2024. 

Paul Durston,  a former operational police officer in the Met, was frequently in trouble for getting the procedures wrong.  Now retired, he writes crime fiction and is still getting the procedures wrong. Diamond Crime has published If I Were Me and If We Were One, psychological thrillers about an operation police officer who is having memory issues. Paul has just started on the third in this trilogy.

www.pauldurston.com 

Kate London served in the Metropolitan Police Service first in uniform, then as a detective. She finished her service working in the Met’s homicide command. Her first book, Post Mortem, was published in 2015. In 2019 she was named runner-up in Harper Bazaar's 2019 short-story competition. Her books are being adapted and broadcast by ITV as The Tower with Gemma Whelan in the lead. Kate also executive produces the series.

Stella Oni’s debut police procedural, Deadly Sacrifice, featuring detective Toks Ade, was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize. She has contributed to various publications like Mystery Readers Journal and short stories in anthologies including Midnight Hour published by Crooked Lane. She is writing book two of the Toks Ade Mystery series, and book 1 of The London House Mystery series, her contemporary crime cosy. Stella is an International Thriller Writers and Jhalak Prize 2024 judge.  

www.stellaonithewriter.com 

Caro Ramsay started her career writing the Anderson and Costello novels. She now enjoys writing the Christine Caplan series, the second of which In Her Blood was published in August 2023. Out of the Dark will be published in August 2024. As well as writing, Caro plays the lead role in Carry On Sleuthing, an acting company of crime writers who push the boundaries of comedy i.e. their plays are beyond a joke.   

www.caroramsay.com 

CrimeFest 2024: Between the Wars: Crime Fiction in the 1920s and 1930s.

  Sunday, 12 May
10:40 - 11:30

The Panel are Jane Adams, Dolores Gordon-Smith,
T.E. Kinsey, Ada Moncrieff,
and the participating Moderator is Kate Ellis.

Jane Adams is an accidental crime writer, now author of almost fifty novels across several series. They range from historical with Henry Johnstone, set between the two World Wars. Procedural, in company of DI Mike Croft, cosy with Rina Martin and all points in between. She is currently published by Severn House and Joffe Books and reads and mentors for The Literary Consultancy. When not playing with words she likes to garden, paint and draw. 

www.janeadamsauthor.com 

Dolores Gordon-Smith lives in Greater Manchester and is the author of the Jack Haldean series set in 1920’s England, Serpent’s Eye, How to write a Classic Murder Mystery and two WW1 spy stories. Married with five daughters, a growing number of grandchildren and various dogs and cats, Dolores has been a teacher, a factory worker and the front end of a cow in a pantomime.  

www.doloresgordon-smith.co.uk  

T.E. Kinsey (Tim) was born in the 1960s. He grew up in London in the 1970s and went to university in Bristol in the 1980s. He worked in magazines in the 1990s, and for IMDb in the 2000s. He still lives near Bristol. He’s responsible for the popular Edwardian cosy series The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries and the forthcoming Fanshaw & Foster series set in the 1970s (both Thomas & Mercer).  

www.tekinsey.uk 

Ada Moncrieff was born in London and has lived in Madrid and Paris. She studied English at Cambridge University, and has worked in theatre, publishing and as a teacher. She is the author of Murder Most Festive, Murder at the Theatre Royale and Murder at Maybridge Castle. She now lives and works in London. 

Kate Ellis was born in Liverpool and she is the author of an acclaimed trilogy set in the aftermath of WW1 as well as a, recently reissued, spooky detective series featuring DI Joe Plantagenet. She is, however, best known for her novels that blend mystery with history and feature archaeology graduate DI Wesley Peterson. Her latest in this series is The Killing Place. She was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library in 2019.  

www.kateellis.co.uk 

CrimeFest 2024: The Indie Alternative

  Sunday, 12 May
09:30 - 10:20

The Panel are Nikki Copleston, Abby Davies,
Susan Grossey, Sherry Hostler, S.J. Richards,
and the participating Moderator is Zoe Sharp.

Nikki Copleston had a career as a librarian in North London, before moving to Somerset in 2012 to devote more time to writing. She has published five DI Jeff Lincoln police procedurals, set in Wiltshire, and won a couple of short story competitions. She also enjoys writing and performing flash fiction and poetry. 

www.nikkicopleston.com 

Abby Davies writes psychological thrillers with a hint horror. Her first two novels, Mother Loves Me and The Cult were published by HarperCollins. Last year she self-published for the first time, and her seventh suspense thriller, The Wrong Island, is hot off the press! Abby is known for writing vivid, emotionally intense scenes that scare the crap out of you!

Susan Grossey can honestly say that she made her living from crime. She spent decades as an anti-money laundering consultant, giving her an obsession with criminal finance.  When she wanted to try fiction, dodgy money kept elbowing its way in.  For seven books she haunted the streets of 1820s London in the company of magistrates’ constable Sam Plank and she now wander her hometown of Cambridge in the same decade with university constable Gregory Hardiman. 

www.susangrossey.com 

Sherry Hostler is the author of the contemporary psychological thrillers Hypnotic and Free Fall.  She also writes short stories, flash fiction and carries out freelance work for magazines. She has written since childhood but took her parents’ advice and got a ‘sensible’ job instead of pursuing her literary passions.  She finally took the plunge, writing her first novel in 2020, and was glad she did as a month later it hit No. 2 in the Amazon Suspense Thrillers List.  

www.sherryhostler.com 

S.J. Richards writes a crime thriller series based in and around Bath in Somerset. His main protagonist, Luke Sackville, is an ex-DCI now working in the private sector, and the series mixes humour in with the murder and mayhem. There are four books out so far with the 5th due to be published in August 2024.

www.sjrichardsauthor.com   

Zoë Sharp spent her childhood living aboard a catamaran on the northwest coast of England. She opted out of mainstream education at twelve, and wrote her first novel at fifteen. She began writing crime thriller fiction after receiving death threats in the course of her work as a photojournalist, and has been nominated for numerous awards. Her latest book concerns police corruption and exploitation of the homeless: The Girl In The Dark, Bookouture, March 2023.

www.zoesharp.com

‘Just Between Us’ by Adele Parks

Published by HQ,
28 March 2024.
ISBN: 978-0-00-844439-6 (PB)

Kylie Gillingham is missing, presumed dead. For years she lived two lives, married to two men. To Mark Fletcher she was Leigh, a loving wife and stepmother to his two sons Oli and Seb, and with rich businessman Daan Janssen she led a glamorous life as Kai, until a few weeks ago when she disappeared after being exposed as a bigamist. One of her husbands is under investigation for her murder, and there’s a shadow over the other. The wealth of circumstantial evidence is probably enough to secure a conviction, but Kylie’s body has never been found, and Detective Constable Clements, assigned to the case, has reservations. A lot of them.

Emotions are running high in the Fletcher household, especially now that Fiona, Kylie’s erstwhile best friend, has moved in. Oli and Seb are wary of her, and twelve-year-old Seb is convinced his beloved stepmother is alive. Everything is made more complicated because it’s 2020, and Covid lockdown restrictions mean nothing can happen the way it should.

And then there’s Stacie, living in an isolated cottage with her father. Following treatment for brain cancer, she has lost her memory and is desperate to regain some sense of who she is.

Just Between Us is a sequel; it follows directly on from the events which led to Kylie’s disappearance. I came to it from a point of no knowledge, but I soon found it didn’t matter; I was soon absorbed in the family life of the Fletchers, Daan Janssen’s careful unpicking of the evidence against him, and most of all in Stacie’s story, which seems to happen in parallel, unconnected to the hunt for Kylie and evidence against her killer.  

The characters may have had a previous life, but Adele Parks is an accomplished writer, and makes sure they come across loud and clear to readers unfamiliar with the earlier book. A layer of desperation underpins everyone’s life, and they all handle it differently. I especially enjoyed Seb and Oli, each dealing in his own way with huge trauma, adolescence, and the trials of lockdown; and Kenneth, Stacie’s father, coping with issues only he knows about.

Another of Parks’s strengths is creating atmosphere. The damp grey blanket that grief throws over everything; the near-hysterical euphoria when lockdown restrictions are lifted; a growing sense of menace and tension as the truth begins to unfold: all are almost palpable.

It’s one of those novels which makes you long for a happy ending for at least some of the people involved. Finding out whether or not they get it is only one reason to read this twisty thriller; there are plenty more besides: characters to warm to or loathe; a great sense of place; and most of all plain old-fashioned good writing. It should garner new fans for Adele Parks.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Adele Parks MBE was born in North Yorkshire and has lived in Botswana, Italy and London and is now settled in Guildford, Surrey. She is the author of twenty-two bestselling novels including the recent Sunday Times hit and audible Number One sensation One Last Secret. She is translated into 31 different languages. She is an ambassador of the National Literacy Trust and the Reading Agency: two charities that promote literacy in the UK. She is a judge for the Costa Awards. In 2022 she was awarded an MBE for services to literature.

Connect with Adele Parks on Twitter @adeleparks, Instagram @adele_parks and Facebook @OfficialAdeleParks 

www.adeleparks.com

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

CrimeFest 2024: Sunday 12 May: Who's Out To Get Me? Watchers, Stalkers and Unknown Assailants

 Sunday, 12 May
09:30 - 10:20

The Panel are Elizabeth Chakrabarty, C. V. Chauhan,
Stephen Edger/M.A. Hunter, Jen Faulkner, 
and the participating Moderator is Alison Bruce

Dr Elizabeth Chakrabarty was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize in 2022 for her novel Lessons in Love and Other Crimes, published in 2021 by the Indigo Press with her essay On Closure and Crime. An interdisciplinary writer of fiction, poems and essays, she was also shortlisted in 2022 for a short story published in The Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction 2022: Crime Stories (Comma Press). Instagram: @elizabethchakrabarty. Twitter: @DrNChakrabarty. 

www.elizabethchakrabarty.com 

C.V. Chauhan is the creator of the crime thrillers set in Leicester, featuring DI Rohan Sharma. The first book in the series, The Dance of Death was published in August 2022 and the second, Shattered Dreams in March 2023. The third, Tripswitch will be published in early May 2024. Champak graduated from the University of York, taught history in London and Birmingham, and worked in state education at a senior level. He now writes full-time.

M.A. Hunter (who also writes crime as Stephen Edger) is the prolific author of psychological thrillers, including Adrift, The Trail and Mummy’s Little Secret. In his latest thriller, Every Step You Take (published by Boldwood Books in March 2024), a London Marathon runner realises her stalker is also competing and must figure out who he is and what he wants before her race ends prematurely. Website: www.stephenedger.com/m-a-hunter

Jen Faulkner, after being a teacher for fifteen years, completed an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, where she was shortlisted for the Janklow and Nesbitt Prize. When she is not writing she can usually be found back in the classroom, or out walking by the sea. What Goes Around is her second novel. She’s currently writing her next novel, about how coincidences aren’t always what they seem.  

www.jenfaulkner.co.uk    

Alison Bruce, acclaimed for her gripping crime novels, introduced Detective DC Gary Goodhew in Cambridge Blue (2008). With intricate plots and vivid characters, she has written seven Goodhew novels. Bruce’s commitment to realism, bolstered by her studies in crime and investigation, continues with her two standalone novels, I Did it for Us and The Moment Before Impact. The first in the Ronnie Blake series, Because She Looked Away, will be published in 2024.  

www.alisonbruce.com  

‘The Trial’ by Jo Spain

Published by Quercus,
25 April 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-52943-980-9 (HB)

Some crime novels are pure entertainment, if matters of life and death can be described in that way. Others make use of the life and death to explore other issues as well, and that’s what Jo Spain’s latest standalone sets out to do. 

From the title, you could be forgiven for expecting a legal thriller, and the opening chapter does nothing to contradict that. A young man, Theo, leaves his girlfriend Dani asleep in her college room in the small hours of the morning, and heads out on a mission which is clearly of the utmost importance to him.

Fast forward nine years, and there’s the first suggestion that the trial in question is actually a different kind. A patient dies on a geriatric ward, and an observant nurse notices something on his records. She reports it, and a month later her body is retrieved from a canal after a car accident.

A year later still, Dani, the girlfriend in the first chapter, has returned to the college as a lecturer – and it soon becomes plain that she is not quite as she seems. Two mysteries start to unfold. Theo hasn’t been seen since his disappearance ten years earlier, and it seems only Dani is concerned; and the nurse’s ‘accidental’ death might be anything but. And the trial of the title is a long way from the legal kind.

Given Jo Spain’s previous life in politics and journalism, it’s unsurprising that what follows sounds pretty convincing as it delves into murky ethical territory. She does it through the medium of scratch-me-and-I-bleed characters, some unequivocally on the angels’ or devil’s side, some who leave the reader unsure what to believe about them. The locations, too, spring off the page: the venerable older college buildings, the shiny new science block, an upmarket bar, a village in France Dani visits, all come to life. 

Spain explores the kind of topic which makes the news and does it with a sure hand on the tiller and a keen eye for what can go wrong. Alzheimer’s, the pharmaceutical industry, funding for education, care for the elderly all come under scrutiny, with the twin mysteries of Theo and the nurse woven into a complex fabric.

Some mystery novels, the best kind in my opinion, raise important questions, examine important issues, and make us wonder exactly what does go on behind closed doors. This is one – and as it does all those things, it succeeds in being a meaty page-turner.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Jo Spain is vice-chair of business body InterTrade Ireland and a parliamentary assistant in Leinster House. Her first novel With our Blessing was published by Quercus, London and was one of seven books shortlisted in the Richard and Judy search for a bestseller competition 2014. The book is based on the investigations of a Dublin-based detective team led by Tom Reynolds. It was launched in Ireland in September 2015 and became a top-ten bestseller that month. The rights have been snapped up in Germany. Since the she has published ten further books. Jo lives in Dublin with her husband and their four young children.  

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

‘The Frost Killer’ by L.T. Ryan and Biba Pearce.

Published by Liquid Mind Publishing,
8 January 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-68533289-1 (PB)

“Savage looked toward the mountains, but it was impossible to see where the ranch land ended, and the hills began…”

For the last three days there has been heavy snowfall in Hawk’s Landing, South Colorado.  It’s created a picture postcard landscape but is the last thing the town’s struggling farmers and businesses need and it’s causing all manner of trouble for Sheriff Dalton Savage. The officer, his wife Becca and baby Conor are still settling into their new property, Apple Tree Farm, and after a long shift, Dalton is glad to be on his way home to spend the evening with his family. Then a call comes through on his radio, suspicious noises have been heard coming from a barn on Lone Mountain Ranch. Savage grudgingly changes direction and makes his way through the relentless blizzard to investigate. 

Inside the barn lies the mauled corpse of a young woman, it seems likely that an animal attack caused her death. Savage isn’t convinced though; something doesn’t seem quite right. He declares the area a crime scene and stays with the frozen body until a medical unit arrives to retrieve it. An autopsy reveals that hypothermia caused the victim’s death and that her injuries were inflicted post-mortem.  After all, it looks like the woman’s demise was a tragic accident, the case is closed.

Enter FBI Special Agent Avril Dahl. She believes that the circumstances of the case fit the modus operandi of a serial killer who has been pursued for fifteen years. “The Frost Killer,” Dahl explains, has already killed fifty-three women - the victim in the barn could be his fifty fourth. At first the sheriff is irked at the outsider’s attempt to undermine his team’s investigation, but the FBI Agent’s evidence is compelling, and the case is reopened. Then, a second local woman is found dead. 

The landscape in which the story unfolds is described with exquisite precision. Its remoteness, craggy mountains and perilous weather add to the sense of jeopardy that infuses the novel.

The story is initially told through a third person narrator and mainly from Savage’s viewpoint. Then, a few chapters in, the murderer’s point of view briefly interrupts the narrative. After this first intrusion, this change of perspective appears intermittently throughout the novel. These rare insights into the killer’s thoughts disrupt the story, challenging and unsettling the primary narrative voice. It is a skilfully executed and highly effective technique that adds to the suspense of the tale. 

The relationships between the individuals working on the case provide an interesting subplot running through the story.  The police officers are a tight group that reflect the community they serve. As they hunt for the killer, their sense of obligation to the people of Hawk’s Landing makes the investigation personal.  Having an outsider join the team brings its own problems and her character is, to say the least, enigmatic. 

The Frost Killer is the fourth in the Dalton Savage series, but the book works perfectly as a stand-alone. The plot has surprises aplenty and cliff-hanger chapter endings ensure you’ll turn the page to see what happens next. A great read and highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

Biba Pearce grew up on the wild eastern coast of Southern Africa. She now lives in Surrey, and when she isn’t writing, can be found rambling through the countryside or kayaking on the river Thames. She writes gritty police procedurals and is the author of the bestselling DCI Rob Miller series published by Joffe Books. Her latest release, The Marlow Murders, was published in October 2023.  Look out for The Frost Killer, published 9 January 2024.

 www.bibapearce.com

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction. 

CrimeFest 2024: Saturday 11 May: Genre Bending: Finding Your Niche.

 Saturday, 11 May
13:40 - 14:30

The Panel are Guy Morpuss, Rachel North,
Teri Terry, 
and the participating Moderator is Vaseem Khan

Guy Morpuss writes speculative crime fiction: twist one aspect of the real world, add a dead body, and play with the consequences. His debut novel, Five Minds, is about five people sharing one body, one of whom is trying to murder the others. His second novel, Black Lake Manor, is a locked room murder mystery with a killer who can unwind time. Before taking up full-time writing Guy worked as a barrister in London.

www.guymorpuss.com 

Rachel North has written six books about what makes us resilient and gives us hope. In her seventh novel, Happily Never After, she has allowed herself to go deeper into the labyrinth and explore the darker motivations of our psyches. She has discovered that envy and obsession - when allowed headspace - create some great plot twists. She is now spending a lot of time gleefully researching wrath and lust… for her next book, of course. 

Teri Terry is a new voice in psychological thrillers. The Patient is a medical thriller published with Bookouture earlier this year. She is also an award-winning, international bestselling author of over a dozen young adult thrillers, including Slated and, most recently, a ghost story, Scare Me.  

www.teriterry.com 

Vaseem Khan is the author of two award-winning crime series set in India. His debut, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was a Sunday Times 40 best crime novels published 2015-2020 pick. In 2021, Midnight at Malabar House, the first in the Malabar House novels set in 1950s Bombay, won the Crime Writers Association Historical Dagger. In 2023, Vaseem was elected the Chair of the 70-year-old UK Crime Writers Association. Vaseem was born in England.  

www.vaseemkhan.com  

Mysteries set at Conferences.

I was at a conference at the weekend and someone said 'are there any mysteries set at conferences'.
I have found a few.

AUTHOR	YEAR	TITLE
ABRESCH. Peter	2003	Painted Lady
ASIMOV, Isaac	1976	Murder at the ABA
CANNON. Taffy	1996	Class Reunions are Murder
CHURCHILL, Jill	2003	Bell Book and Scandal
COLLINS. Max Allan	1984	Kill Your Darlings
CUTLER. Judith	1996	Dying to Write
FENNELL,Tony M	2001	Don't Blame the Snake
GLASS, Suzanne	2000	The Interpreter (1st)
HART. Carolyn G	1991	The Chrisie Caper
HESS. Joan	2000	Conventional Corpse
	1986	The Murder at the Murder at the Mimosa Inn
KING. Peter	2001	A Healthy Place to Die
LEWIS. Roy	1998	Murder on the Golf Course / The Ghost Dancers
LORENS. M K	1992	Dreamland
MILES. John		Murder in Retirement
O'KANE. Leslie	1999	Fax of Life
PETERS, Elizabeth	1984	Die for Love