So after lunching with Penguin Random House’s Transworld
Imprint (photos and video here)
there was just enough time for a couple of Gin and Tonics in a Public House, before
the Shots Team set off to re-join our colleagues for the next literary
celebration: The 2018 Penguin Crime Party.
The Penguin Crime Party has been an annual event,
principally to support the Michael Joseph imprint at Penguin Random House: one
that is renowned for their interest in Crime and Thriller Fiction.
They used to be more modest events, usually
hosted upstairs at The Union Club in Soho; where Publisher Rowland White would
welcome the dozen or so guests, perched precariously on a rickety old wooden
chair.
This year we were in The Crypt by Trafalgar Square, where
Penguin incidentally hosted a Crime Party over a decade ago [Click
Here
for going back to 2007] while back in 2005, Mike Stotter and I enjoyed a party
hosted by Hodder and Stoughton at the same venue for John Connolly [Click
Here
for photos and report]
So as The Talented Mr Mike Ripley had to have an early
night; Ayo Onatade, Mike Stotter and I wandered off to The Crypt, where we met
up with many of our bibliophilic colleagues.
It was great to meet up Chris Simmons of Crimesquad, Karen Robinson of The Sunday
Times, Marcel Berlins of The Times, Jake Kerridge of The Telegraph, Jon Coates
of The Express, writers / literary commentators Natasha
Cooper and Peter Guttridge and many others.
From Penguin we had present Sam Deakin, Rowland White, Gaby
Young, Joel Richardson among others – and there were plenty of their authors
present to mingle with, between the quaffing of wine, one of life’s pleasures
(namely talking about crime and thriller fiction over Red Wine).
Soon it was time for publisher Joel Richardson to take to the podium to
welcome the assembled guests -
And then it was time to talk books and uncover what is
coming from this eclectic Crime and Thriller Imprint; and there were far more
writers to name here, so instead we present an array of photographs from the
event.
And a tip - I think Jack Grimwood’s follow-up to MOSKOVA is a
book to look out for – NIGHTFALL BERLIN and why I am impressed by this work is
summed up concisely in this precis –
In 1986, news that East-West nuclear-arms negotiations are
taking place lead many to believe the Cold War may finally be thawing.
For British intelligence officer Major Tom Fox, however, it is
business as usual.
Ordered to arrange the smooth repatriation of a defector, Fox is
smuggled into East Berlin. But it soon becomes clear that there is more to this
than an old man wishing to return home to die - a fact cruelly confirmed when
Fox's mission is fatally compromised.
Trapped in East Berlin, hunted by an army of Stasi agents and wanted
for murder by those on both sides of the Wall, Fox must somehow elude capture
and get out alive.
But to do so he must discover who sabotaged his mission and
why...
You can thank me later.
So after thanking Gaby Young and Rowland White for the invitation to the party, we headed back into the London Noir.
Read More about Penguin Random House’s Michael Joseph
Imprint and their upcoming 2018 Crime Fiction Click HERE
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