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Showing posts from June, 2014

Book Review: Knife Edge by Fergus McNeill

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This is the follow on novel to Eye Contact and continues the story of serial killer Robert Naysmith, his girlfriend Kim and his Nemesis DI Graham Harland. In Knife Edge Naysmith has an epiphany of sorts and decides he wants to share his serial killing past with his girlfriend Kim. He begins to introduce this concept to her slowly bit by bit. Unfortunately, his arrogant craving for recognition of his crimes makes Kim increasingly scared and unsure what to do as she becomes privy to more and more information.

Tip Off Fancy a chance to face leading crime fiction agent Jane Gregory in the Dragons Pen, or pickup a few tips at the Creative Thursday Workshops (Only a few spaces left)

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Jane Gregory  ASPIRING AUTHORS SEEKING LIFE OF CRIME A few spaces are still available for the 2014 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival’s hotly anticipated creative writing workshop, Creative Thursday. ‘Dragons’ Pen’ is the culmination of the day-long creative writing workshop The workshop offers the opportunity to pitch concepts to two powerhouse literary agents, Jane Gregory of Gregory and Company and Juliet Mushens of The Agency Group, and two highly esteemed publishing professionals, crime editor at Faber & Faber, Katherine Armstrong, and Publisher for Transworld Publishers, Bill Scott-Kerr.

Book Review: The Garden Of Burning Sand by Corban Addison

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The Garden Of Burning Sand by Corban Addison is my favourite novel of the year so far… and I so very nearly didn’t read it.   Initially I thought it was going to be too heavy for my tastes, but I am so pleased I dipped into this book because it reinforced my conviction that to do nothing   is failure, whereas to do something , no matter how little, is success. (read more)

Tip Offs : My Hot Tips for Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival Harrogate (17-20th July 2014)

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Five Hot Tips For Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival In Harrogate This year the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival offers panels and discussions ranging from discussions on Smartphones safety, Authors changing to the crime writing genre, self publishing, and  Special events featuring authors such as Denise Mina and Lynda La Plante.  The following are my 10 must go to panels for this year and  are in no particular order. see more...

If you liked #1 in the Techno Trio series (Zodiac Station by Tom Harper), follow these links for free "extra's" about Zodiac Station

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I've just noticed a few intersting "extra's" that link to Tom Harper's novel Zodiac Station. Here is a link to Polar Vortex , a free ebook introducing Zodiac Station: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Polar-Vortex-Tom-Harper-ebook/dp/B00JV1Q3NC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1403017328&sr=1-1&keywords=polar+vortex ..and here is a novel idea (no pun intended) - it's a blog from Zodiac Station, telling you about the station, what they do as well as biographies of the characters you meet in the book: http://zodiacstation.blogspot.co.uk/ I hope you enjoy these little "add on's" Romancrimeblogger

Look Out for These – Techno Trio: #1 - Zodiac Station by Tom Harper – murder, science and suspicion in the cold of the Arctic

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This month’s highlights have a common theme – they’re all “Techno Thrillers” and for a change I’m going to write slightly longer reviews of the three books I think are worth looking out for and post them separately.  The first is Tom Harper’s latest novel – Zodiac Station. As the US ice breaker Terra Nova battles its way through the frozen Arctic, they come across a man staggering through the storm suffering from exposure, malnutrition and a gunshot wound.  The man tells the crew the story of is escape from an explosion at Zodiac Station – a catastrophe preceded by the murder of one of the station’s scientists.  The man’s story doesn’t add up and as other survivors appear leaving the crew to work out which of them is telling the truth, who is lying and whether danger has followed them to the Terra Nova. The story is told from a number of different points of view which gives the reader plenty of scope to try and unravel the mystery, searching for those clues and inconsi

Retro Review: The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith – one year on, is it possible to be objective about Robert Galbraith’s first crime novel?

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There’s an awful lot in the press at the moment about Robert Galbraith’s (J K Rowling’s) new novel The Silkworm.  The author’s secret came out last year propelling The Cuckoo’s calling from a lowly place in the bookselling list to number one in a matter of days.  I don’t know whether you got caught up in the fever at the time and bought the book.  I waited for a while before buying it and have to confess that it lingered for ages on my e reader, simply because my reading pile was so big.  I finally got round to it last month and have been toying with whether to post a review or not.  In the end I did – here it is! The novel starts with the apparent suicide of Lula Landry, a beautiful but troubled young model who apparently jumped from the balcony of her upper floor flat.  Enter the central characters of the novel - Cormoran Strike (one legged war hero and private detective, whose business is failing and has just split up with his girlfriend) and Robin Elacott (deliri

Book Review: Death Can’t Take a Joke by Anya Lipska – Number two in the Kershaw and Kiszka series, showing that it wasn’t only plumbers that came over from Poland

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Lipska’s first book Where the Devil Can’t Go had been in a virtual pile of unread books on my Kindle for a while and when I saw the second in the series, I decided to skip book one and go straight for book two.  The two central characters in Death Can’t take a Joke are the same as in book one – Natalie Kershaw, the ambitious detective and Janusz Kiszka, a kind of honest fixer for the local Polish Community, who might be best described as a big hearted bear of a Pole.   The plot starts with a series of seemingly unconnected events – a body falling from the top of a building in Canary Wharf, another body fished out of the river Thames and Kiszka’s best friend stabbed to death outside his own house in a completely motiveless attack that leaves the police baffled.  Kershaw and Kiszka each start their own investigations and their paths cross with action in both the UK and Poland.  Kiszka finds the killer clue that will solve the case, diligently following it up at consi

International Crime Quiz : ANSWERS

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  1./ Lord Peter Wimsey       GB Flag 2./Jules Maigret       French Flag 3./ Philip Marlowe   USA Flag 4./Hercule Poirot         Belgian Flag 5/  Salvo Montalbano         Italian Flag 6./ Miss Marple          GB Flag