Lou Gilmond: On researching for PALISADE

 It started with an honourable member: Harry Colbey, although he wasn’t always called that. The member of parliament for Gloucester East had several names before that one stuck, and even then, I had to rob from the grave.

That’s the problem with research. It throws up complications. Neither the man nor the parliamentary constituency exist, but I write political thrillers set in Westminster and like to make sure there are no unfortunate coincidences. No accidental similarities of name that might set tongues wagging and confuse fiction with fact. Particularly since corruption and the choice between right and wrong are major themes of my Kanha and Colbey series of political thrillers.

As I was writing Dirty Geese, the first in the series, I was at the same time digging into MPs connected to scandal. Firstly, to ping out ideas for plot twists for that book and Palisade, the next in the series. But also, to be sure I didn’t use names for my two MP protagonists that were similar to those of anyone who really existed, particularly if linked to disgraceful goings-on or – as it tends to be called when connected to our politicians – sleaze.

Before I turned to writing, I worked for many years in regulatory affairs, which often involved lobbying MPs, ministers, and civil servants. During that time, I visited both the Houses of Parliament and the government departments of Whitehall on a regular basis, and even No 10 on occasion. It didn’t matter how many times I went, I still felt it an honour to be there; to stand, for example, in central lobby, an octagonal room at the centre of the Houses of Parliament and the beating heart of Westminster. Anyone can meet or lobby an MP in this room. It sits at a crossroads, one corridor leading off it to the Lords and another, on the other side, to the Commons. It is a place where members of both sides of the commons and members of both houses meet and mingle, and where the lobby press can interview ministers and backbenchers alike.

From my time visiting Westminster, I had a good grounding on the culture there and of the differing characters of MPs, of ministers and civil servants, but I’m one of those writers who like to be thorough when it comes to research, so I dug on in.

Affairs, theft, bribery, blackmail and sexual harassment: that was just for starters. Call girls, rent boys, aggressive pimps who call late at night, inappropriate content on computers, watching pornography at work, misrepresentation of educations and prior careers, drugs in the workplace, drugs outside of the workplace, vendettas, violence, and fraud.

It seemed that if there was a list of things that MPs shouldn’t be doing, every single item on it had been covered off in some form or other, at some time other.

It didn’t take too long to discover that the name I had chosen for one of my protagonists bore a resemblance to that of a real-life MP connected to one of the more salacious events in my research notes. I won’t say which one. Just a single letter differentiated their surnames. Annoying. The name of my male protagonist had to change. I picked another, and as my research continued, found the exact same thing happened again. Frustrating.

The name of a protagonist is an important cornerstone of any book and as I floundered about, my male protagonist was nameless while that first book, Dirty Geese was written. Then, at the last minute, when the manuscript was due in to my editor, I saw a name on a grave in a little churchyard on the south coast. ’Colbey.’ It was perfect. An honourable sounding name for an honourable MP, and as far as I knew – or to put it more accurately as far as google was aware – there had not been a British MP with that name since Thomas Colby died in 1588, and his version of the name had a different spelling. The given name of Harry came easily after that.

Harry Colbey, a truly honourable member of parliament. A rare and fine thing.

By the time I came to write Palisade, Harry Colbey felt as real as any of the MPs I met with in my time lobbying or in my subsequent research. He was an honest man, a family man, his kids grown up and just recently flown the nest. He had disappointed his wife with his choice of career, leaving his relatively well-paid position at a bank to stand for parliament.

His plan had been to serve his constituents well and represent their interests in the House of Commons to the best of his ability. He had had a brief moment of political stardom, promoted to a junior minister early on, but he wouldn’t do what they told him. He wouldn’t compromise his morals to toe the party line, so he had been kicked back to the backbenches.

There he disappeared from view, working quietly and tirelessly on behalf of his constituents, all ambition for advancement forgotten, much to his wife’s embarrassment and shame. But when Colbey uncovers a corrupt plot between senior ministers and a big tech organisation, he feels he must abandon his hopes of a quiet slide towards retirement and instead stand up and fight for what he believes in, no matter the cost.

Both Palisade, and its predecessor, Dirty Geese, are thrillers that look at corrupt links between politicians and big tech organisations, particularly those who now have advanced AI capabilities at their fingertips. They can be read standalone, or picked up in any order, as each book looks at different aspect of the same conspiracy – although chronologically, Dirty Geese comes first.

I tried hard to make sure that the politics within them is reflective of the way our parliamentary processes really work, or to be more accurate, on occasion don’t work. But both Dirty Geese and Palisade are crime thrillers at heart and they each start with a murder. They both involve jeopardy, deceit, international conspiracy, corruption and a whole catalogue of twists and turns. And they each turn on the hope that there is at least one MP out there who will do what needs to be done, who will stand up and say what needs to be said, and that is the honourable Harry Colbey.

 Palisade by Lou Gilmond (Fairlight Books) Out Now

When opposition Chief Whip Esme Kanha is handed a secret dossier containing evidence of government corruption, she suspects its original owner, a top journalist, was murdered for gathering it. Despite the danger, she feels she must investigate. Meanwhile, lowly backbencher Harry Colbey is working his own leads. A known campaigner against big tech, he is often sent data from anonymous sources and this time round he has something truly alarming. But both Colbey and Kanha must tread carefully in a world dominated by AI, where 'what can see watches, what can hear listens, and what can be followed is tracked'. As Kanha and Colbey again join forces, they are locked into a deadly race against political corruption, no matter what the cost. But when an old enemy returns, it may already be too la

Palisade by Lou Gilmond is published on 21st November and is available to buy in bookshops now.

More information about Lou Gilmond can be found on her website. You can also find her on Instagram @lougilmond

CrimeFest ’25 to Feature Exclusive le Carré Event

 

Le Carré’s sons feature in event in honour of their father.

CrimeFest, one of the UK’s leading crime fiction conventions, will feature an exclusive John le Carré event featuring the author’s two sons.

Considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era, the ‘Ghost of Honour’ panel sees le Carré’s son, Nick Harkaway, discuss his latest novel, Karla’s Choice. In the book, Nick brought back one of his father’s most famous literary creations – George Smiley.

The panel also welcomes Le Carre’s older son, the film producer Simon Cornwell, who is the CEO and co-founder of the independent studio, The Ink Factory. He is currently executive producing the much-anticipated second season of The Night Manager for Amazon and the BBC, starring Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman.

Further guests for the panel are to be announced.

Director and co-founder of CrimeFest, Adrian Muller, said: “As a genre, crime fiction dominates our TV and film screens, and John le Carré is undoubtedly a seminal influence. It’s a huge honour to welcome his sons. We’re excited to discuss Nick’s acclaimed novel, and to get an exclusive look into the upcoming adaptations of le Carré’s iconic novels with Simon.”

CrimeFest, sponsored by Specsavers, is hosted from 15 to 18 May 2025 at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel, when up to 150 authors are expected to descend on Bristol appearing in over 50 panels. It attracts regular delegates from as far as Australia, the Far East, Canada, the United States, and mainland Europe.

Also confirmed for 2025 is the Canadian mystery writer, Cathy Ace. Cathy's Cait Morgan Mysteries have been optioned for TV by the production company, Free@Last TV, which is behind the hit series, Agatha Raisin.

Vaseem Khan, chair of the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA), has also been confirmed as 2025’s Gala Dinner’s 'Leader of Toasts' for the 2025 CrimeFest awards. Vaseem is author of the Malabar House historical crime series set in Bombay. His first psychological thriller, The Girl in Cell A is out in May 2025.

Considered as one of the most democratic of crime fiction events, CrimeFest is open to all published authors and known for its inclusive approach. To appear on a panel, authors – or their publishers - simply sign up as a delegate to take part. Authors have until the end of November to sign up to be featured in the 2025 convention.

The convention began in 2008 and attracts readers, fans, editors, publishers, and reviewers.

Other confirmed names for ’25 include: Andrew Child, who has taken over writing the Jack Reacher novels from his brother Lee; veteran novelist and Diamond Dagger recipient John Harvey, who has written over 100 books, including his series of jazz-influenced Charlie Resnick novels, and Kate Ellis, winner of the CWA Dagger in the Library award.

First introduced in 2022, the CrimeFest bursary for a crime fiction author of colour returns for a fourth year. The bursary covers the costs of a weekend pass to the convention, with a night’s accommodation and panel appearance. Previous recipients include Saima Mir and Elizabeth Chakrabarty. Entries for 2025 are now open.

The convention also continues its Community Outreach Programme. In partnership with the independent Max Minerva’s Bookshop and participating publishers, CrimeFest gifts thousands of pounds of crime fiction books for children and young adults to school libraries.

With thanks to Specsavers, librarians, students, and those on benefits are offered significantly discounted tickets.

To find out more, or to book your spot as a delegate, go to: https://www.crimefest.com/

 

Winner of 2024 Petrona Award announced

 

The winner of the 2024 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year is: 

DEAD MEN DANCING by Jógvan Isaksen translated from the Faroese by Marita Thomsen and published by Norvik Press. 

Jógvan Isaksen will receive a trophy, and both the author and translator will receive a cash prize. 

The judges’ statement on DEAD MEN DANCING: 

Similar to the story of the ancient god Prometheus, a man has been shackled to rocks on the Faroe Islands, and left to drown on the beach. The discovery of his body throws the local community into an unsettling chaos, and as the journalist Hannis Martinsson investigates, he comes across evidence of similar deaths. He realises they are linked to the events in Klaksvík in the 1950s, and a local revolt which tore the community apart. As Martinsson digs into the troubled past, he learns about his country’s history, and also gives the reader a chance to discover what makes the Faroes intriguing and spellbinding. Being a largely unknown territory to most, Dead Men Dancing includes a useful introduction to the modern reality of these islands by the CEO of the Faroese Broadcasting Corporation, mirrored by the social commentary that lies at the heart of the book itself, and the portrayal of the relationship with Denmark throughout the years. 

This is only Isaksen’s second novel to be translated into English following Walpurgis Tide. This contemporary Faroese crime fiction writer places his characters in the wild, beautiful, and unforgiving environment and allows them to search for truth. The judges found the location to be absolutely integral to the unfolding of the plot, and how the raw natural beauty of the Faroes served as a reflection of the thoughts and actions of the characters.

Dogged and uncompromising, Martinsson is a superb creation, similar in his ‘detective’ thinking and approach to Gunnar Staalesen's lonely wolf PI Varg Veum, which the judging panel found very appealing. Martinsson's gloomy demeanour and natural cynicism was beautifully balanced throughout with the more empathetic side of his nature, and in the age-old tradition of crime fiction his personal and professional relationships are fraught with tension. 

The translation by Marita Thomsen is both accomplished and a little unusual, drawing as she does on the vernacular and intonation of the Scottish dialect. Again, the judges found this to be refreshingly different, and enjoyed the unique cadence and rhythm this gave to the book overall, an essential quality of any book in translation. 

The judges agreed that in Dead Men Dancing the balance between location, plot and characterisation worked well, incorporating some of the familiar tropes of crime fiction, but also providing a refreshingly different reading experience. This was achieved by the depiction of the Faroes themselves and their history, working in symmetry with the narrative, and also by the characterisation of Martinsson, reminiscent of the traditional spare style in Nordic crime fiction. The assured and distinctive translation was also a significant factor in the judges' overall decision. 

Statements from the winning author, translator and publisher:

Jógvan Isaksen (author): 

I feel it is a great honour to win this award, especially when I see that the competition includes several of my favourite Scandinavian authors. I am also proud to represent my country, the Faroe Islands, a self-governing part of the Danish Kingdom with its own language and traditions. Furthermore there are special bonds between the UK and The Faroes since the friendly occupation during World War II. I personally became a member of Collins Crime Club when I was only thirteen, and fought my way through crime novels I could hardly read. But at last I got there and have for many years been an admirer of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Eric Ambler, Colin Dexter, Ian Rankin and many, many more. 

Marita Thomsen (translator): 

It was thrilling to translate the Faroese novel Dead Men Dancing and a great honour to receive the Petrona Award. I am privileged to find myself in the company of the master crafters of stories and languages shortlisted this year, congratulations to all! My thanks first and foremost to Jógvan Isaksen for keeping us in suspense, as he navigates the rugged outlines of the psychology and wild shores of the Faroe Islands. This book offers a fascinating window into regional tensions in the archipelago and historical tensions in the Kingdom of Denmark. Thank you to the passionate Norvik team for expert guidance and editorial advice. And to Richard and Jane for your patience and boundless enthusiasm for everything, even the difference between rowing boats and oared boats. 

Janet Garton (Norvik Press Commissioning Editor):

We are delighted that Dead Men Dancing has won this year’s Petrona Award. Jógvan Isaksen is a master of suspense, and his maverick amateur sleuth Hannis Martinsson takes the reader on hair-raising trips by land and sea before – of course – solving the mystery before the frustrated police. The Martinsson series was the basis of the successful TV series TROM, and this is the second of the series to be published by Norvik Press, after Walpurgis Tide in 2016. Hopefully there will be more to come! 

 

Managing a Maverick! Peter Lovesey on the four smart women who tried and succeeded . . . mostly

Like me, the Bath detective, Peter Diamond, has reached the end of the line. He made his debut as far back as 1991 in The Last Detective, an odd title for a series that would last 33 years. It didn’t seem odd at the time, because the book was supposed to be a one-off, about a middle-aged rebel out of sympathy and out of touch with modern policing. He tackles one last challenging case and by the end of the book he has quit the force and become a department-store Santa Claus – another unsuitable job, because his last act as a cop was shoving a twelve-year-old against a wall and putting hm in hospital. But as a civilian he still managed to solve the case and inform the right people how it was done. For all his failings, he was second to none as a sleuth.

So what changed my mind about writing a series? The Last Detective was my nineteenth novel in twenty-one years of trundling along as a mid-list author. To my great surprise, this one had an outstanding reception. The critics lavished praise on it. Julian Symons in the Times Literary Supplement wrote the longest review I had ever had, calling it a brilliant performance. Marcel Berlins in The Times, noted that this was my first modern whodunit, “and a terrific job he makes of it”. The American connoisseur of crime fiction, Allen J Hubin, called it a marvellous achievement; Tom Nolan in the Wall Street Journal rated it as “a perfectly realized murder mystery”; and Josh Rubins in the New York Times described it as “a bravura performance from a veteran showman.” At the Bouchercon, it won the Anthony award for the year’s best novel. Closer to home, the chair of the Dagger judges, F E Pardoe, gave me an earful for not allowing the book to be submitted. I was chair of the Crime Writers Association that year and might conceivably have presided over an awards dinner in which I presented the main award to myself.

Reeling from it all, the “veteran showman” was persuaded to rescue the last detective from his latest job as a night-club bouncer and relaunch him as a series. I had no idea how long it would last, but over the next two books I found a way of getting Diamond back into the Bath police and there he has remained until the end of this year.

A long series brings its own problems and the most immediate was Diamond’s age. In The Last Detective, he was 41. The books were supposed to keep up with the times. He would be 74 by now. In the new one, Against the Grain, there is talk of his retirement – and no wonder. I have to hope my loyal readers will suspend disbelief and allow him to be forever middle-aged.

The challenge for me as the writer was to find a way of allowing this dinosaur to have a believable role in a modern police force. He has the deductive skills to solve crime, but I had cast him as a loner, uncomfortable working with a team who are partly in awe, partly in shock at his disregard of policing theory and protocol. By good fortune, his deputy is Inspector Julie Hargreaves, intelligent, brave and empathetic. She smooths the way for him, with the team and with his superiors. When there are murmurings in the ranks, Julie comes to his defence. But she is not afraid to let hm know when he is out of order. People like Julie deserve to be cherished. All too often, their value goes unappreciated. Diamond values her, but there comes a point, in the sixth book of the series, Upon a Dark Night, when his bull-in-a-china-shop attitude goes too far.  He doesn’t understand why Julie takes offence and puts in for a transfer. His wife Stephanie has to explain why. By then, Julie has gone.

After six books, I tired of Diamond and he was probably sick of me. I knew too much about him, his home life with his wonderful wife, Steph, his work with the murder squad in Bath, his clumsiness, his dislike of fast cars, his short fuse with troublesome colleagues and the men in white coats. I took time off from the series and wrote a book called The Reaper about a murderous rector called the Rev Otis Joy.  I still believe Joy was an inspired creation, but most readers didn’t agree. They wanted more Diamonds.

I decided the only way to rescue the series from tedium was to give Diamond a life-changing experience and find out how he coped with it. In Diamond Dust, his beloved Steph is murdered at the start. ‘How could you do that?’ I am asked whenever I give a talk or meet a reader. I try to explain, but I am not forgiven. Steph was the love of his life. She understood his deepest insecurities and helped him deal with them. Earlier in her life she had made a disastrous marriage that ended in divorce. A new relationship was the last thing she wanted when this overweight, overbearing policeman made a mess of a talk he was giving on safety first to the brownie group she led. After that, he kept finding excuses to come back. In the end, she saw the positives in his personality. The turning point was the summer camp when he turned up unexpectedly with two donkeys called Bradford and Bingley. The brownies were overjoyed and Stephanie changed her mind about getting married again.

I was learning that a series can be much more than a number of artfully plotted stories linked by a main character. As the books progress, so do the lives of the people in them, the main protagonist, his family and colleagues. The killing of Steph was cruel and catastrophic. No way could the book be called cosy and predictable. How would Diamond channel his grief?

It sounds calculating, but Steph’s murder gave me the impetus to continue. In Diamond Dust, he is barred from investigating his own wife’s killing. Typically, he ignores the ban. In the books that follow, he is a changed man, mentally scarred. He recovers his bluff exterior, but we know he will never get over his loss. His good fortune is that in time two other women help him to function.

The first is Ingeborg Smith, a journalist he meets at press conferences. She isn’t good news herself. Not for Diamond, anyway. She asks penetrating questions and won’t take evasion. Highly intelligent, she is a formidable adversary. However, Diamond, too, is smart. He senses that Ingeborg secretly wishes she were behind the microphones dealing with the questions. Her ambition is to become a detective. For him, this solves the problem. He invites her to apply for a job in the police and fast-tracks her into his team, where her brilliant mind is put to positive use. Over the series, she quickly rises in the ranks. She is never officially his deputy, as Julie had been, but she can take up any role from going undercover to dealing courageously with dangerous suspects, to keeping her boss from making a fool of himself. And she takes no nonsense from the team, who understandably have their complaints about Diamond’s rough-and-ready crime-solving.  Ingeborg, the thorn in his flesh, has become his protector.

Thanks to Inge, life in the office became tolerable and engaging again. But what of his personal life? For several books in the series, he lives alone in the house he shared with Steph in Weston, her cat Raffles his only companion, a comfort, but a daily reminder of his loss. Then, in one of novels – I won’t say which – he  meets Paloma Kean, who suffers a traumatic shock through no fault of her own. Diamond is sympathetic. By degrees a friendship is formed and eventually a relationship. Paloma invites hm to move into her large house on Lyncombe Hill, where she has a successful business providing images of costume for period dramas on TV, film and the stage. Raffles approves, and the deal is done. Paloma becomes the fourth woman who understands Diamond better than he understands himself. She can never replace Steph, but she has some of Steph’s insights and often sheds light on work problems that baffle him.

In the last of the series, Against the Grain, Julie Hargreaves, retired and living in a Somerset village, contacts him out of the blue and invites him to stay, bringing Paloma and, of course, Raffles. A week in the country has no appeal, he tells Paloma. He is a townie, through and through. And he doesn’t tell her that he is uneasy about these two women from quite different stages in his life meeting for the first time. Persuaded that Julie must have a good reason, he agrees to go. A huge shock awaits him, not to mention a village murder to investigate. There I must stop. I want you to read the book and I may have given away too much already.

Four remarkable women. Between them, they span the entire series. Where would Peter Diamond have been without them?

Against the Grain by Peter Lovesey (Sphere, Little Brown Publishers)

When his former deputy, Julie, invites Detective Peter Diamond and his partner Paloma to spend a week at her home in the depths of rural Somerset, Diamond is horrified. What could be worse than seven days in the back end of nowhere with nothing to do? But it turns out that Julie has an ulterior motive. A local woman is doing time for manslaughter after a wild party ended in a tragic accident: a man suffocated in a silo of grain. Nobody in the village has much sympathy for Claudia, the unruly daughter of a wealthy local farmer. Nobody that is, except Julie, who is convinced there's more to this case than there appears and wants her former boss to investigate. And as Diamond tests his skills as an amateur sleuth, he soon discovers that the countryside isn't quite so dull as he'd anticipated . . .

Against the Grain is published by Sphere on November 14 and in America by Soho Press on December 3.

‘The MWA Grand Master brings his Peter Diamond series to a richly satisfying conclusion in Against the Grain.’ Publishers Weekly 

More information about Peter Lovesey and his books can be found on his website.

Mick Herron to Chair Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival 2025

Festival dates 17-20 July 2025

Harrogate International Festivals has announced highly acclaimed, internationally bestselling thriller writer Mick Herron as Programming Chair for the 2025 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, the world’s largest and most prestigious celebration of crime fiction.

Mick Herron is the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Slough House thrillers which are the basis of the award-winning TV series, ‘Slow Horses,’ starring Gary Oldman. He has been shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year six times and won the award in 2022 for Slough House. Previous Programming Chairs include Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Elly Griffiths, Denise Mina, Lee Child, Vaseem Khan and Ruth Ware.

Mick Herron said:

“The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival is an annual highlight for crime writers the world over, a collegiate gathering where the callous and cosy genres meet, and their practitioners discover they have more in common than might have been expected. I attended my first Harrogate weekend ten years ago, and each one since has provided a wealth of happy memories. So, it's an honour and a thrill to be invited to work alongside a brilliant, dedicated committee, with an eye to producing a Festival that will continue to promote the wide-ranging talents of our community and offer new treats alongside familiar pleasures.”

Building on the success of the 2024 Festival, which saw over 18,000 tickets sold, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival returns to Harrogate 17-20 July 2025, offering fans from around the world a unique opportunity to hear from the genre’s biggest stars, discover thrilling new talent and enjoy a packed programme of panels, talks and creative workshops. The Festival Special Guests will be announced in February 2025, with the full programme revealed in Spring 2025.

Simon Theakston, Chairman of T&R Theakston Ltd, said:

“As a long-time admirer of Mick Herron’s work, I am delighted that such an internationally renowned writer – and former Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year winner - is taking on this important role. I’m intrigued to find out which crime and thriller writers will feature on Mick’s programme and look forward to another showstopping celebration of the world’s best loved genre next summer.”

Sharon Canavar, Chief Executive of Harrogate International Festivals, said:

“Mick Herron is so popular with crime fiction fans around the world, and we are truly honoured that he has agreed to be Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival’s 2025 Programme Chair. Mick and the programming committee have been hard at work curating a thrilling line-up that truly showcases the breadth and brilliance of crime and thriller writing. We can’t wait to reveal all and welcome everyone back to the Festival in July.”

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival is delivered by the north of England’s leading arts Festival organisation, Harrogate International Festivals and forms part of their diverse year-round portfolio of events, which aims to bring immersive cultural experiences to as many people as possible.

Weekend Break Packages go on general sale on Wednesday 13 November from 10am. To book, please call the Festivals team on +44(0)1423 562 303 or email info@harrogate-festival.org.uk. Rover tickets and individual event tickets go on sale in Spring 2025. More information about tickets and packages can be found here.

New Blood for CWA Daggers with Awards’ Sponsorship

 

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Daggers – the genre’s oldest and most famous awards - has announced two new sponsors.

The 2025 Dagger Awards sees the editorial consultancy Fiction Feedback sponsor the Emerging Author Dagger, and Morgen Witzel sponsor the Historical Dagger in memory of his wife, Dr Marilyn Livingstone.

One of the UK’s most prominent writers’ societies, the CWA was founded by the prolific author John Creasey in 1953. In 1956, it hosted its first awards ceremony for the best crime book of the year, which went to Winston Graham, best known for Poldark. Agatha Christie was the principal guest.

The prestigious Dagger awards celebrate the best in crime writing, with 13 Dagger Awards in total, including the highest honour in crime writing - the CWA Diamond Dagger - which recognises careers marked by sustained excellence. Recipients over the years include PD James, Ruth Rendell, Colin Dexter, John Le Carré, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Ian Rankin, and Martina Cole.

Fiction Feedback was established in 2008 by editor Dea Parkin, the CWA’s secretary then coordinator for eight years. Her guiding principle is to provide exceptionally helpful services to writers, while properly rewarding her stable of freelance editors for their expertise. As a result, writers return for Fiction Feedback critiques and editing year after year.

Dea said: “The CWA and the wonderful crime writers they support have helped me to pursue the career of my dreams: editing fiction and helping talented writers get published. It’s an honour to give something back by supporting the Emerging Author Dagger as a sponsor, as well as continuing the best role in the world as the CWA’s Competitions Coordinator.”

The Emerging Author Dagger (formerly the Debut Dagger) is an international competition, open to any unpublished author in the world writing in English. The competition has been running for over 20 years, and helps launch careers. To date, agents and editors have signed over two dozen winners and shortlisted Emerging Author competitors.

Morgen Witzel is a writer and lecturer. Together with Marilyn Livingstone, writing under the pen names A.J. MacKenzie and R.L. Graham, they wrote thirteen historical crime novels and thrillers, set in locations as diverse as Europe in the Middle Ages, Romney Marsh during the era of smuggling, the Canadian frontier in the War of 1812 and the last fatal voyage of the Lusitania.

Under their own names, they also wrote two works of historical non-fiction analysing the battles of Crécy and Poitiers. Separately, Morgen teaches ethics and leadership at the University of Exeter Business School and is the author of numerous books and articles on these and other subjects.

Morgan said: “I am sponsoring the Historical Dagger in memory of Dr Marilyn Livingstone, historian, writer, musician, and composer, who passed away in September 2023. Marilyn and I were married for 43 years, during which time we wrote fifteen books together and planned many more. Her death from cancer at the age of 63 was far too soon, and robbed the world of a renaissance woman whose talents had really begun to shine. I hope that this award will help to preserve her memory.”

Other sponsors of the awards include the family-owned company that looks after the James Bond literary brand, Ian Fleming Publications, which backs the CWA’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger.

The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), a not-for profit organisation that supports authors to receive fair payment, sponsor the Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction.

Sponsors of the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger is the intellectual property specialists, International Literary Properties (ILP).

The Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger is sponsored by former CWA chair, Maxim Jakubowski, in honour of his wife Dolores Jakubowski, who was a translator and university lecturer but now suffers from Alzheimer’s.

The CWA is keen to hear from other individuals or organisations with an interest in sponsoring a Dagger.

Heather Fitt, co-ordinator at the CWA, said: “We’re incredibly grateful to Dea Parkin and Morgen Witzel for their support for 2025’s Dagger Awards. As a members’ organisation, the support of authors and organisations who work in the genre is crucial. It helps us deliver these prestigious annual awards, which in turn puts new and emerging authors on the map, as well as celebrating established talent.”

The CWA’s founding aims were to provide a social network, as well as help crime writers with business matters. Today, the CWA’s determination to promote the genre remains central to its mission.

Nominations for the 2025’s Daggers are now open.

For more information go to: The CWA Daggers - The Crime Writers’ Association

Denzil Meyrick on the changing face of reading tastes

 It’s hard to say why literary tastes change over the years. Some might say that writers, deciding what they fancy committing to paper, are the prime movers behind this. I don’t think that’s true. The tectonic plates of what is popular and what’s not is far too seismic, too ubiquitous to be the product of a whim or a mass move of the collective.

It’s clear that external forces are at work, influencing readers and writers alike.

Take WWII, for example. The most popular genre was historical fiction, mainly with a theme depicting our gallant soldiers triumphing against allcomers. This is easy to understand. There are very few left who can remember the very real horror the population faced in that conflict. For the first time, this modern war placed every man, woman, and child on the front line, thoughts of violent death or invasion never far away. No longer, was war restricted to two lines of men facing off in a muddy field, ready to slash, slice and trample in the name of everyone else.

Of course, the unfortunates who found themselves in the midst of battle have suffered for centuries. Now though, one’s demise could arrive from a clear, blue sky. Who can blame those who found peace and reassurance through the pages of a book?

Fast-forward to our own era. Yes, since that war, there have been many hard times. I lived through the ‘three-day week’, when power cuts and food shortages became the norm in this country. Add to that, the visceral impact of terrorism, threat of nuclear inhalation, natural disasters, and man’s continued inhumanity to man; well, that tiny voice of fear refused to disappear. But on the whole, in this country at least, we’ve enjoyed a prolonged period of peace, relative safety.

Enter, SARS-CoV-2, better known now as Covid.

Once again, danger came from that blue, blue sky – any sky, to be accurate. An enemy we couldn’t see wreaked havoc across the globe, no respecter of borders, political and military power, race, religion, sex, age or creed. It created unimagined horror, with too many dying far from the love and embrace of their families and friends.

I think the true impact of this disease will take decades to properly understand. Though there is something we noticed almost immediately: our collective reading habits changed. We now have the term Romantasy. It might not be in the dictionary yet, but complex, grand love stories that now take place under the level gaze of warlocks, witches and dragons, fly off the bookshelves in huge numbers. In the USA particularly, the love life of cowboys and cowgirls is now a major literary draw – yeeha!

There can be no doubt that Covid, the Cost-of-Living Crisis, and wars and rumours of wars have found those who take to the written word for entertainment rushing for escapism.

So, how does this trend affect crime fiction and thrillers?

While it’s always dangerous to generalise, there appears to be a move to something much less visceral. The vicarious thrill of consuming murder and mayhem between the pages of a book, has suddenly become a gentler experience; perhaps replete with a little humour to ease our passage through a book. The success of Richard Osman and many, many others bear witness to this. Somehow, the stress and strain of contemporary life has turned reading to its earliest days, with a rise in novels that are much closer to the golden age of crime writing, than they are the slash-and-burn realism of a few years ago.

Yes, these stories are every bit as compelling, thrilling and unputdownable, but they offer escapism without sleepless nights. Unless, of course, one is up all night trying to work out devilishly clever plot twists and turns.

My Inspector Grasby Mysteries, feature a hapless Yorkshire detective, back in the 1950s. It’s no coincidence that the indomitable Frank and boss Superintendent Arthur Juggers find themselves in a time just after that other great tumult, the Second World War. It’s almost as though it’s all gone full-circle – well, as far as I’m concerned, anyway.

Then, we have the magic of Christmas. It’s a time for tall tales told in the dark and cold. I’ve often wondered why that is. But if you close your eyes really tightly, it’s not too hard to imagine a tiny group of people, huddled round a flickering flame, telling tall tales to banish the ice-age to the back of the mind.

Some things never change.

The Christmas Stocking Murders by Denzil Meyrick (Transworld|) Out Now

A case shrouded in secrets. It’s just before Christmas, 1953. Grasby and Juggers are investigating a puzzling murder in the remote village of Uthley’s Bay. A fisherman has been found dead on the beach, with a stocking wound tight round his throat. A festive mystery for one and all. Hundreds of pairs of stockings, in neat cellophane bags, soon wash up on the shore. A blizzard cuts off Grasby and Juggers from help, and the local innkeeper is murdered. Any remaining Christmas cheer goes up in smoke as the villagers refuse to talk, leaving the two detectives chasing false leads in the snow. A winter wonderland with no escape. To make matters worse, Grasby can’t stop thinking about stockings. Why does everyone seem to be enjoying strangely high standards of hosiery, even beneath their oilskins? Who is the sinister bespectacled man snooping around their hotel? And how can they solve the murder when everyone in the village is a suspect?

More information about Denzil Meyrick and his books can be found on his website.

You can also follow him on X @ Lochlomonden and on Facebook.

             

           

The Power of The Outsider

I've always been fascinated by the out-of-place. The marginalised, the unsure, the people faking it 'til they make it, right down to the actual swindlers and imposters and con artists. If writing compelling narrative fiction is about tension, what's more tense than someone being where they believe (or someone else believes, if they knew the truth) that they don't deserve to be?

In my debut novel 'A Reluctant Spy', the protagonist Jamie Tulloch is a perennial fish out of water who turns his unease into a career. At the age of 23, a working class loner adrift at his Cambridge college, he agrees to become a Legend, part of a secret MI6 programme to recruit individuals willing to act as living cover stories. Sign up and you'll get a secret helping hand through life - access, job offers, nudges in the right direction. But at some point, you'll need to step out of your life for a few weeks while a lookalike agent uses your identity as bulletproof cover. Except, of course, something goes wrong and Jamie finds himself on a mission he's not trained, ready or even very willing to take on.

While I don't precisely share Jamie's life history (my upbringing was a whole lot less tough than his, and I very definitely didn't go to Cambridge), we do share a common experience of navigating social contexts, workplaces, relationships and friendships that crossed boundaries and left us feeling out of place. I was in my university's Officer Training Corps for three years and got partway through the process of applying to Sandhurst, which was my first serious brush with people from a dramatically different background. After that, I was lucky enough to get into a graduate scheme and move to London, where I brought a regional accent and a distinct feeling of imposter syndrome to the glossy world of IT consulting. I vividly remember ending up at parties with investment banking trainees and wondering how on earth I'd ended up there.

Unlike Jamie, though, I hadn't made a Faustian pact that dictated my future, so I was free to choose a different path. I returned to Scotland and developed parallel careers in digital design and writing. And as I did, an old fascination returned to me - the world of spies and spying.

When I was studying English Literature at the University of Aberdeen, I wrote my final dissertation on the topic of Paranoia in Modern Spy Fiction, focusing on Graham Greene and John Le Carré. I looked at the isolated, fearful lone spy, without gadgets or guns or even certainty about their mission, conducting morally compromised missions in dangerous, brutal and hostile territories.

That initial fascination with paranoia and fear in spy fiction then spent a couple of decades marinating in a whole slew of different takes on the world of espionage, from the betrayed and amnesiac human weapon of the Bourne books and films to the misfits and misanthropes of the glorious Slough House series by Mick Herron. So when I was in discussions with my agent and editor about my debut novel, I wanted to draw on that continually broadening spy fiction tradition. But what would I bring, personally? The answer seemed obvious - the feeling of being an ordinary person who is pretty sure they're not actually supposed to be where they are.

As I wrote the book, I realised that what I most wanted Jamie to experience was the same thing I had through various jobs, relationships and pursuits - the slowly dawning realisation that I was actually able to take on scary new roles, learn new skills, and that I did deserve to be there. And that far from being the deceitful and sinister infiltration of a Tom Ripley-esque character, the ability to adapt, to learn new social rules and to function in hierarchies and contexts you weren't born into is a serious life skill and advantage.

In the book, Jamie uses his chameleonic abilities to deal with rogue Russian mercenaries, CIA operatives, arms dealers and many more mysterious characters swirling around his target, Arkady Bocharov, while proving to himself that he might just have what it takes to be an effective covert agent. And in writing this book, I got to indulge that crucial question - what would would my price be to become a 'living cover story' like Jamie? And what would I do if I found myself in the same situation, thrown into the middle of an active mission?

My hope is readers will ask themselves the same questions. And I also hope they'll grow to love the often haplessly foolhardy Jamie Tulloch and the other members of the Legends Programme trying desperately to keep him alive.

A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman (Headline) Out Now

Jamie Tulloch is a successful exec at a top tech company, a long way from the tough upbringing that drove him to rise so far and so quickly.  But he has a secret...since the age of 23, he's had a helping hand from the Legend Programme, a secret intelligence effort to prepare impenetrable backstories for undercover agents. Real people, living real lives, willing to hand over their identities for a few weeks in return for a helping hand with plum jobs, influence and access. When his tap on the shoulder finally comes, it's swiftly followed by the thud of a body. Arriving at a French airport ready to hand over his identity, Jamie finds his primary contact dead, the agent who's supposed to step into his life AWOL and his options for escape non-existent. Pitched into a deadly mission on hostile territory, Jamie must contend with a rogue Russian general, arms dealers, elite hackers, CIA tac-ops and the discovery of a brewing plan for war. Dangerously out of his depth, he must convince his sceptical mission handler he can do the job of a trained field agent while using his own life story as convincing cover. Can Jamie play himself well enough to avoid being killed - and to avert a lethal global conflict?

More information about the author and his writing can be found on his website. You can also follow him on X @WordsByGoodman and on Instagram @davidgoodmanauthor

A Poisoned Chalice: The new Sister Agnes story

Sister Agnes, for those that don’t know her, is a nun; contemporary, in an open order, based in South London.  She is a detective. And, in the archetypal mode of the amateur detective, she finds herself on the outside of things, privy to people’s secrets. In the words of a lovely police officer who has helped me on and off with my research, ‘There’s always someone who knows more than we do.’

In the time of Sherlock Holmes, it was easier for an amateur sleuth to know more than the police.  But now, with CCTV, mobile phone tracking, and highly developed forensic science, the expertise of the amateur detective is distilled into that one central point: being the repository of other people’s secrets.  And, as Sister Agnes works in a hostel for homeless young people, that is exactly what she is.

The new novel starts with a young woman appearing on the hostel doorstep asking if they’ve seen her husband, a young man on the wrong side of the law who has now gone missing. This one simple event widens out into a much bigger mystery, concerning a medieval silver cup known as the Judas chalice, a priceless, possibly stolen, artefact belonging to one of the old catholic families. It is extremely rare due to its depiction of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot, the thirteenth apostle – so rare, in fact, that someone is prepared to kill for it.

I’ve always liked the classic detective structure – an all-knowing central character through which the story is told, with a Marple or a Maigret or a Marlowe at the heart of it. It allows a three-way relationship between author, reader and detective, all sharing the fun of engaging with the story together. The challenge is to make sure the reveal comes as a surprise while at the same time allowing the reader to walk hand in hand with the detective in solving the mystery.

But I also try, in my work, to bear witness to the harm that humans do.  People look at Golden Age crime fiction and make the mistake of seeing it as lightweight, as a historical romp in the company of Sayers, Allingham, Christie et al.  But as far she was concerned, Agatha Christie was writing The Modern Novel. And, having lived through a world war, she needed to talk about human pain, human damage, in a very particular way.   For some time, I have circled the idea that as a nun, Sister Agnes will at some point have to tackle the harm of which the church itself is capable, where its huge and powerful influence collides with its dangerous obsession with sex, shame and sin.

Sister Agnes, like many fictional detectives, is a person of contradictions. She has religious faith and yet is constantly beset by doubt; she accepts the unsolvable mystery of a God, and yet the mystery of a killing on her doorstep is there to be solved with careful attention to evidence, to science, to reason.

This new novel, A Poisoned Chalice, is the first of two brand new Sister Agnes novels

A Poisoned Chalice is the eighth in the new series published by Joffe, (with seven of the earlier novels republished under new names).  It has been a delight to be back with her, and also with her two best friends, Athena and Father Julius, who accompany her through the story in their own particular ways, Athena with shopping, clothes, cake and fizzy wine – and Julius with his own particular and difficult challenge.

The problem of evil may be preached from a pulpit, but what happens if that evil is within the church, rather than something external to be fought by the might of the faithful? And how does someone of faith continue within a structure that is so warped, so potentially malign?

Sister Agnes, walking the streets of South London, will find herself wrestling with all these questions.

 A Poisoned Chalice by Alison Joseph (Joffe Books) Out Now

Meet Sister Agnes. She’s not your typical nun. She loves killer shoes, sipping prosecco — and solving mysteries . . . A holy grail . . . or a poisoned chalice?
Agnes has never met Jay Sorrell. But she knows his type. Tall, dark and dangerously magnetic. A Catholic boy turned petty criminal, he’s not one to play by the rules. Now he’s vanished, leaving his wife to hunt for him at Agnes’s homeless shelter. But the search ends in tragedy. Late one night, Agnes wakes to the sound of sirens — and the acrid smell of smoke. St Bruno’s church is burning. Agnes races to the scene, in time to see a body being pulled from the smoking ruins. This is no random John Doe. It’s Jay. Whoever lit the fatal match must have known . . . Down in the ruined crypt, a safe gapes open. Was this the hiding place of the fabled Judas chalice? A priceless heirloom that’s been missing for decades. Some would kill to lay hands on this prize. And if Jay happened to be standing in the way of that . . . ? Agnes won’t stop until she uncovers the truth about Jay’s death and the missing treasure. But once she’s sipped from this deadly cup, there’s no going back . . 

You can find more about Alison Joseph and her books on her website. You can also follow her on X @AlisonJoseph1

Photograph of Alison Joseph ©Hugo Glendinning

Depending on the kindness of history by Steven Veerapen

Sometimes history can be kind to novelists. Occasionally, characters suggest themselves and, even more rarely, the historical record presents us with themes and ideas we’re already hoping to explore. History was very kind to me as I set about writing a Tudor-era murder mystery. Not only was Henry VIII’s suspicion-filled, blood-soaked royal court tailor made for intrigue, dark deeds and skulking figures, but the record of his reign threw up exactly the type of character who might work as a detective. 

In studying the 1511 Westminster Tournament Roll, which captured in a series of images the celebratory jousts held to welcome Henry’s short-lived son, the “New Year’s Prince” into the world, I encountered a figure who has recently come under serious scholarly scrutiny. John Blanke - a tiny figure depicted twice, blowing his trumpet from the vellum margins of the narrative images - has the distinction of being one of the first (if not the first) black people in England whose name was recorded. Thus, he has recently sparked interest as scholars have scrambled to discover how he came to be depicted as a member (albeit a minor one) of Henry’s court, and how he came to be in England at all. The consensus is that he probably arrived with the retinue of Henry’s first wife, Katherine of Aragon (who hailed from a united Spain which had conquered the “Moors” and begun transporting slaves from North Africa).

John’s story, however, wasn’t mine to tell. Again, though, history was kind; not only did John marry but he probably married an Englishwoman (we know, for example, that he was given gifts from the Tudors on the occasion of his wedding and that he had the clout to ask for higher wages - and there is no record of any black women in England during his time in service). As he disappears from the record in the late 1510s, I was left with - if you’ll excuse the pun - a blank.

I was also left with an idea. If John Blanke married an Englishwoman, it is possible - even likely - that the aim was to produce children (marriages in the period being generally more for the purposes of procreation than love or companionship). Any resulting child, born of two races, had a story I knew I could tell. Suddenly, given my own heritage (my mum being from Pollok and my dad from Mauritius!), I had a character I knew I could write - and one with ties, via his father, to the court of Henry VIII.

Devising and plotting any murder mystery relies on the construction of a detective figure, whether an amateur or a professional: we all know Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and Lord Peter Wimsey. If writing a mystery set in the sixteenth century, one is virtually forced to go down the amateur route; there was no police force in Tudor England and there were no professional detectives.

What there was, however, was a great deal of law (even if it seems there was often very little justice). Henry VIII’s England, indeed, had officers at every level: urban aldermen; city watchmen (often respectable homeowners who farmed out the actual work to inferiors); local justices of the peace; constables; march wardens; churchwardens (who worked in and with ecclesiastical courts, whose jurisdiction covered spiritual crimes, such as adultery); and coroners (who were appointed rather than trained, and who held juried inquests into unexplained deaths). Yet the actual grind of investigative work was essentially up for grabs; a killer was, in all likelihood, going to get away with his or her crimes if those questioned at the inquest stage either fingered the wrong person or had no idea how a victim came to die. In order to be caught, a murderer very often had to be caught in the act or to have left a clear trail of evidence.

Into this confused world I launched Anthony Blanke, son of John, who follows in his father’s footsteps in working for the great (if not the good) in the 1520s – these the boon days of Henrician England, when Reformation was only distantly on the horizon. Once again, history – particularly that Westminster Tournament Roll – was good to me. On looking at it again, it struck me that a marginal figure (as Anthony Blanke would have to be, in various ways) was best placed to observe the comings and goings at his master, Cardinal Wolsey’s court. What better figure than a trumpeter, paid to be heard and not seen, and to lurk in alcoves and doorways, to spot shady dealings and piece together clues? I hope those who read “Of Blood Descended” find him and his world as much fun as I did.

 Of Judgment Fallen by Steven Veerapen (Birlinn General) Out Now

Spring, 1523. Henry VIII readies England for war with France. The King’s chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, prepares to open Parliament at Blackfriars. The eyes of the country turn towards London. But all is not well in Wolsey’s household. A visiting critic of the Cardinal is found brutally slain whilst awaiting an audience at Richmond Palace. He will not be the last to die. Anthony Blanke, trumpeter and groom, is once again called upon to unmask a murderer. Joining forces with Sir Thomas More, he is forced to confront the unpopularity of his master’s rule. As the bodies of the Cardinal’s enemies mount up around him, Anthony finds himself under suspicion. Journeying through the opulence of More’s home, the magnificence of Wolsey’s York Place, and the dank dungeons of London’s gaols, he must discover whether the murderer of the Cardinal’s critics is friend or foe. With time running out before Parliament sits, Anthony must clear his name and catch the killer before the King’s justice falls blindly upon him.

More information about Steven Veerapen and his books can be found on his website. You can also follow him on X @stevenveerapen.