Books to Look Forward to from Canelo

 January 2023

For DCI Gillard, sometimes old sins cast long shadows…Under a motorway flyover lies the body of a young man. Days earlier, he had been involved in an altercation with DCI Craig Gillard’s pregnant partner Sam. Now he’s dead…Meanwhile, something is brewing in the criminal underworld. Whispers of a big job have reached the Met’s Flying Squad. Something is going to be stolen, and soon. Something worth £500m. But what? And where? And how does it relate to the body under the overpass? It should be a simple case: stop the burglary, crack the gang, find the murderer – but for Gillard, once again it’s personal… The Body in The Shadows is by Nick Louth.

The Investigator is by John Sandford. By twenty-four, Letty Davenport has seen more action than most law enforcement professionals. Working a desk job for US Senator Christopher Colles, she’s bored and ready to quit. But when her skills catch Colles’ attention, she is offered a lifeline: real investigative work. Texas oil companies are reporting thefts of crude. Rumour has it that a sinister militia is involved. Who is selling the oil? And what are they doing with the profits? Letty is partnered with a Department of Homeland Security investigator, John Kaiser. When the case turns deadly, they know they're onto something big. The militia has an explosive plan… and the clock is ticking down.

February 2023

A Terrible Village Poisioning is by Hannah Hendy. The local mayor has a dinner date with death…With school out for the summer, Margery and Clementine Butcher-Baker are taking advantage of the break to go on holiday. They plan to explore the village of St-Martins-on-the-Water and rest before the chaos of Mrs Smith's impending hen do. By the end of their first night, the local mayor lies dead on the floor of the hotel restaurant, having been poisoned by his meal. The villagers are convinced: The Poisoner is back. As the residents turn to the duo with suspicion and begin to freeze them out, Margery and Clementine are left with more questions than answers. Everyone is convinced that the pair – and Clementine in particular – are bad news, but why? And as more people in the village start to become unwell, the question remains, is The Poisoner back, or is this the work of a new killer? And will they strike again?

Blood and Fireflies is by B M Howard. A Dark Murder. A secret brought to light … June, 1797. From his headquarters at the Villa Mombello near Milan, the French revolutionary army’s young general, one Napoleon Bonaparte, dictates peace terms to Europe’s monarchies with breath-taking ease and arrogance. But when a series of malicious events at Mombello threaten to set Italy ablaze once again, and talk of a ghoul stalking in the night committing atrocities spreads like wildfire among the assembled guests, Napoleon forces failed magistrate Felix Gracchus out of retirement to solve the puzzling murders. But when a series of malicious events at Mombello threaten to set Italy ablaze once again, and talk of a ghoul stalking in the night committing atrocities spreads like wildfire among the assembled guests, Napoleon forces failed magistrate Felix Gracchus out of retirement to solve the puzzling murders. Gracchus’s unwilling escort in this military world is ambitious but underachieving young cavalry officer Dermide Vanderville. Aided by Napoleon’s unruly tomboy sister Paolette, they set about unravelling the twisted skeins of intrigue and terrible secrets clogging the mansion’s shadowy corridors.

Having just completed a complex recovery assignment, covert salvage specialist Korso is in no mood to take on another job so soon, but he has little choice when he’s contacted by Cole Ashcroft, an ex-colleague who’s calling in a debt. An official at the US Embassy in Bulgaria has approached Cole with a well-paying salvage job, but only if he can persuade Korso to plan the whole operation. A chemist for a pharmaceutical company has secretly developed a revolutionary glaucoma pill, one with an unexpected side effect that could make it the discovery of the century. But the chemist has since been found dead, and the prototypes are missing... Aware that ownership of these pills could shift the balance of military power overnight, the embassy man offers to pay Korso handsomely to locate and recover them using any means necessary. But with a job this big Korso also knows he’ll have to assemble a team to help him, and that brings its own set of problems. Because with potential profits in the billions, can he really trust anyone...? The Prototype is by Jason Dean.

Agent in the Shadows is by Alex Gerlis. There's a traitor in the pack... Who can you trust? The extraordinary final instalment of the Wolf Pack series. June, 1943. In Lyon, the capital of the French resistance, a secret meeting is held under orders from General de Gaulle. The objective is to unite all resistance factions. The future of France is on the line. But when the meeting is raided by the Gestapo under Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon', the plan disintegrates and the leaders are captured. The movement has been betrayed. There is a traitor in Lyon. British undercover agents Jack Miller and Sophia von Naundorf are sent to France. They must find the informer and save the resistance. But the Gestapo is on the hunt. More traitors emerging from the shadows. The net is closing.

March 2023

What The Shadows Hide is by M J Lee. To love and to cherish, till death did them part... Two desiccated bodies are found in each other's arms in the bricked up room of a derelict Victorian warehouse. After six months of work, the police have nothing and Ridpath is finally called in to investigate. Dubbed the Romeo and Juliet murders by the press, so many questions remain unanswered. Who are they? Why were they there? Who killed them? And why was the coroner so keen for him to work on this particular case? Ridpath is plunged into his most difficult investigation yet, in a race against time to discover the truth. Has an unknown serial killer been operating in Manchester for the last twenty years? 

All The Grey Cats is by Craig Thomas. Despite nearing the end of his intelligence career, spymaster Kenneth Aubrey is given yet another critical mission: he must arrange the defection of an East German officer, Kurt Winterbach, who holds important Soviet and East German military secrets. Under Aubrey’s authority, Winterbach is brutally interrogated by British Intelligence, and dies whilst trying to escape. His mother, the vengeful senior KGB officer Brigitte Winterbach, blames Aubrey and seeks retribution, with the power of the Stasi at her disposal. Meanwhile in Nepal, Tim Gardiner,Aubrey’s adoptive son and ex-Ghurkha, finds himself hunted down by an East German wet squad. He knows something he shouldn’t: the KGB are planning a coup in the wake of the death of the king. But what he doesn’t yet know, is that his life is intended to be a forfeit for Kurt Winterbach’s. With Russian war planes poised to invade and riots breaking out as the king approaches his death, Gardiner will be the bait to lure Aubrey into a fateful meeting with Bridgitte Winterbach only hours before the Soviet takeover, in which the future of Nepal hangs explosively in the balance…

April 2023

Welcome to Eldey, an island with deadly secrets. Mona is a carefree artist, staying at The Cloister to work on her illustrations. Beth is the harried mother of a toddler, on the remote Welsh island for a weekend escape with her family. Charlotte wanted a romantic getaway with her husband, not a trip with his troubled teenage stepdaughter. One of them is a serial killer who poisoned four of her friends at her eleventh birthday party. When one of the hotel guests is found dead, it becomes clear to Mallory Dawson – the night manager of the boutique island hotel and former police detective – that The Birthday Girl is among them. Three guests who fit the profile, but which of them would risk everything to kill again? The Birthday Girl is by Sarah Ward.

Dark Angel is by John Sandford. Letty Davenport’s days working a desk job are behind her. Her previous actions at a gunfight in Texas – and her incredible skills with firearms – draw the attention of several branches of the US government, and make her a perfect fit for even more dangerous work. The Department of Homeland Security tasks her with infiltrating a hacker group that is intent on wreaking havoc nationwide. Letty and her reluctant partner from the NSA pose as free-spirited programmers for hire and embark on a cross country road trip to the group’s California headquarters. But soon they begin to suspect that the hackers are not their only enemy. Someone within their own circle may have betrayed them, and has ulterior motives that place their mission – and their lives – in grave danger.

May 2023

A Thief's Justice is by Douglas Skelton. London, 1716. Revenge is a dish best served ice-cold… The city is caught in the vice-like grip of a savage winter. Even the Thames has frozen over. But for Jonas Flynt– thief, gambler, killer – the chilling elements are the least of his worries… Justice Geoffrey Dumont has been found dead at the base of St Paul’s cathedral, and a young male sex-worker, Sam Yates, has been taken into custody for the murder. Yates denies all charges, claiming he had received a message to meet the judge at the exact time of death. The young man is a friend of courtesan Belle St Clair, and she asks Flynt to investigate. As Sam endures the horrors of Newgate prison, they must do everything in their power to uncover the truth and save an innocent life, before the bodies begin to pile up. But time is running out. And the gallows are beckoning...

June 2023

Black Valley Farm is by Sheila Bugler. She tells everyone her name is Clare Brown. She's twenty-seven years old. She's an only child. Her parents were killed in a car crash. She used to have a black cat called Ollie. None of these things are true. Ten years ago, nine people were found dead at Black Valley Farm. The only suspect was never found. Clare has spent a decade living a lie but a new podcast on the murders threatens to bring her carefully built life crashing down. But Clare isn’t the only one hiding something. Somebody knows she’s lying, and they’ll stop at nothing to ensure the truth never comes to light. 

Perfect Crime Writing Festival 2021

 

9 – 9.45am: 

Registration

10 – 11am: 

Murder on the Mersey: Margaret Murphy (moderator), Caz Finlay, David Jackson, Amanda Brooke. Liverpool is a city steeped in culture and history – but it is also a city of stark contrasts, and its dark side has inspired many authors, from literary giants to saga writers. Join us for Murder on the Mersey, where four local (and international!) crime writers, Amanda Brooke, David Jackson, Margaret Murphy (aka Ashley Dyer) and Caz Finlay will discuss the impact of this beautiful and often troubled city on their writing.

11:15 – 12:15pm: 

Writing in the Margins: Ann Cleeves, Elly Griffiths, Rhiannon Ward (Chair) Ann Cleeves, Diamond Dagger winner and author of the Vera and Shetland novels, in conversation with Elly Griffiths. Chaired by Rhiannon Ward, these two fabulous writers will discuss the marginal/coastal locations in their crime novels, touching on the importance of nature, isolation and forgotten communities in their writing.

12:15 – 1:00pm: 

Lunch

1:00 – 2:00pm: 

Gritty and Gripping: Mel Sherratt, Heather Burnside, Noelle Holten, Caz Finlay(moderator) What makes a book unputdownable? What makes a reader keep turning the pages? Gritty and gripping are just some of the words used to describe the novels of these three fantastic authors. Chaired by Caz Finlay, these bestselling authors will discuss just how they put the grit and grip into their thrillers, and what they think keeps their readers coming back for more.

2:15 – 3:15pm: 

Golden Age Fiction: Sophie Hannah and Martin Edwards. CWA Diamond Dagger winner Martin Edwards is an authority on British crime fiction, awarded the Edgar, Agatha, Macavity, and HRF Keating Awards for his non-fiction book The Golden Age of Murder. He is also follows in the footsteps of Agatha Christie, as current Chair of the Detection Club. Sophie Hannah is a multi-award-winning, international bestselling author of psychological chillers, and a dedicated Agatha Christie fan. For almost forty years after her death, Christie’s family famously rebuffed any suggestion that they might pass the authorial baton to another author yet, to date, Sophie has written four Poirot ‘continuation’ novels, with the Christies’ full blessing. These two clearly have a lot to talk about. And if you like your murder framed in a more elegant era, this is a must-see!

3:15 – 4:00pm: 

Signings and Social: Your chance to mix with fellow attendees and some of our special author guests, buy the latest crime fiction releases from our authors, and have your books signed.

also

3:15 – 4:00pm

:Crime Writing workshop with David Jackson. Crafting the Killer Pitch: As novelists of commercial fiction, we are in the business of selling ideas – to agents, to publishers and, ultimately, to readers. Our chances of success increase dramatically if we can express those ideas in ways that are brief and snappy and carry a punch that sends our intended audience reeling. In this short workshop David Jackson describes techniques that will help you in devising story pitches that have exactly that tight, powerful focus. (REQUIRES SEPARATE TICKET WHICH CAN BE BOOKED AS AN ADD-ON WHEN YOU BUY YOUR PERFECT CRIME TICKET)

4:00 – 5:00pm: 

Truth and Lies: Ann Cleeves and Prof James Grieve. What is the truth behind the fiction? Professor James Grieves’s long career in forensic pathology has taken him around the globe and involved a number of high-profile cases. Prof Grieves has also brought the weight of his extensive real-life knowledge and experience to bear on panel discussions between authors and scientists across the UK. So, what does he make of writers’ attempts to bring realism to their fictional crimes? Find out in a fascinating and revealing chat between these two friends.

5:15 -6:15pm: 

Mind Games: M W Craven, Margaret Murphy, Susanna Beard, Barry Forshaw (moderator) The psychology of the murderous mind has fascinated readers since Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, and crime readers demand psychological depth in contemporary mysteries. But why are we so obsessed with damaged psychologies and the criminal mind? And what is it like to get into the mind of a killer? Barry Forshaw talks to three bestselling authors who really put the psycho into their psychological fiction.

Tickets can be bought here.

Walking a Tightrope in Stilettos – The PI’s lot. by Marnie Riches

In her recent review of Tightrope, fellow author, Sarah Rhiannon Ward observed that my new thriller, featuring Private Investigator, Beverley Saunders, put her in mind of Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski novels. How amazing to be mentioned in the same breath as Paretsky! I was deeply flattered, I can tell you, especially since this debut outing for the fearless but flawed Bev is the first time I have told a story with a PI at the helm. 

Crime-thrillers with private sleuths or non-police officers as the main protagonists are among the most successful in the world. Patricia Cornwell has millions of fans for her Dr. Kay Scarpetta series, featuring a chief medical examiner. Elly Griffiths is doing brilliantly well with her forensic archaeologist, Dr. Ruth Galloway. My own criminologist heroine, Dr. George McKenzie (in my The Girl Who… series, set in South East London and Amsterdam) has done rather well with readers too. But back to the humble independent sleuth! In addition to Paretsky and Sue Grafton, JK Rowling has had incredible success as Robert Galbraith, writing about her PI, Cormoran Strike. On the small screen as well, the private gumshoe has captured imaginations across the globe. In the 80s, we adored Magnum PI with Tom Selleck. Back in the 1990s, the great British TV-watching public tuned in to get their weekly fix of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates…for four series! And yet, there certainly isn’t currently a proliferation of super-successful PIs in the broad church that is the British crime -fiction genre. They’re massively outnumbered by cops!

As I write this piece for Shots readers, I do have to ask why there is this disproportionate dominance of coppers in crime-fiction, when amateur or non-police sleuths have so much more freedom to investigate. As an author, you get far more mileage from a PI who plays fast and loose with the law than from a detective who is bound by hierarchy, protocol and legal idiosyncrasies. Bev Saunders turned out to be a tremendously fun protagonist for me. Initially, she starts digging for dirt on behalf of her client, Angela Fitzwilliam – the battered wife of Shadow Cabinet Minister, Jerry Fitzwilliam. On the surface, Angie has it all. She’s a wealthy, pampered housewife, living in Hale, Cheshire, where footballers rub shoulders with old money and millionaire entrepreneurs. But scratch the surface and Angie’s world is falling apart, thanks to her bullying, lying husband who puts on a convincing show for the media. 

As Bev is a recent divorcée herself, she’s persuaded to take on Angie’s plight and find strong evidence of grounds for divorce that will insure Angela against Jerry’s threat to deny her custody of or even access to their children and to withhold all her marital wealth. This is a powerful man who likes to play dirty, but because Bev is a lone wolf – apart from help in digital matters that she gets from her therapy-group friend and technology-whizz, Doc – Bev can play dirty too. By catfishing the Cabinet Minister and trying to honey-trap him, she becomes embroiled in a terrifying cat-and-mouse chase, where eventually, she is the one being investigated, nay, stalked. Unlike a detective, Bev Saunders is able to go the extra mile without worrying that she’ll be disciplined by a superior. In fact, she’s so naïve to the risks of the job, the pay is so poor and the stakes – if she fails in her self-employed venture – are personally so high, that Bev’s prepared to walk a very perilous tightrope indeed if she’s to bring her case to a satisfactory conclusion. She’s willing to hack, lie and literally flirt her way to the truth, allowing me to take the reader on a very gritty, at times seedy and thrilling journey.

Do you think 2019 is going to be the summer where Private Investigators get their time in the sun again thanks to a fictitious northern divorcee with sex- and origami-addictions? Will you read Tightrope and be glad that Bev is so driven, so unregulated and so unprofessional in her conduct? Might you just enjoy the danger that little bit more knowing you could easily do her job…if only you were brave and foolhardy enough? Why don’t you let me know?!

Tightrope by Marnie Riches (£7.99, Trapeze Books) Out Now

What happens when a private investigator ends up being the one uncovered?  Having lost everything after a failed marriage, Beverley Saunders now lodges in the basement flat of a house owned by her best friend Sophie and her husband, Tim. With Bev's former glittering marketing career in the gutter, she begins to do investigative work for other wronged women, gathering dirt on philanderers, bosses and exes.  But when Beverley takes on the case of Sophie's friend Angela, who is seeking to uncover grounds for divorce from her controlling husband, Jerry, the shadow Science Minister, she soon discovers that she isn't the only one doing the investigating... Beverley has a secret history she doesn't want coming out - but will she manage to stay hidden long enough to give Angela the freedom she deserves?

Bodies from the Library - 2019 Programme

9:30 Doors open: Registration

9:55 Welcome

10.00 Is The Golden Age Humdrum? - Jake Kerridge, Moira Redmond and Richard Reynolds

10.30 The Puppet Master: John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) - Tony Medawar

11.00 City and Countryside in ECR Lorac’s crime novels - Sarah Ward

11.30 COFFEE

11.50 Two (Undeservedly) Forgotten Crime Club Authors - John Curran

12.20 The Max Carrados Tales of Ernest Bramah - Dolores Gordon-Smith

12.50 LUNCH

1.50 Radio Play

2.20 Murder in Mind: The Crime Novels of Helen McCloy - Christine Poulson

2.50 Agatha Christie: Playwright Julius Green and John Curran

3.20 Solving Crimes Down Under: June Wright (1919-2012) - Kate Jackson
3.50 COFFEE

4.10 Cyril Hare: Master of the English Murder - Martin Edwards and Christine Poulson

4.40 The 10 Types of Impossible Crime - Jim Noy and Daniel Curtis

5.10 Ask The Experts

The Uncomfortable Truth of the Missing by Sarah Ward

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The missing hold an enduring fascination for us. As rational beings we demand explanations. When a murder takes place, we want to know who did it and why. Any evidence of the supernatural is met with a raft of scientific theories and justifications. Even the least scientific amongst us anxiously wait for explanations. Take secrets. Facebook, in particular is full of them. In any one day my timeline is full of posts recommending that we ‘watch this space’ and ‘an exciting announcement coming soon’. It prompts us to return to social media even though we know it’s eating into our writing time. Why? Partly, because we want resolution. We can’t abide the thought of the unknown. And generally, in life, very little remains completely unexplained.

The missing, however, taunt us with their absence. For those who have voluntarily disappeared, the not knowing is excruciating for their family. Near me, the relatives of teenager Andrew Gosden, who left his home in 2007, still post updates ten years later asking for information on his whereabouts. They know he made it as far as London and, after that, nothing. I can only imagine how excruciating the not knowing is for them. And, of course, not every absence is voluntary. I grew up in south Manchester and the still missing victims of the Moors murderers was an ever constant reminder to us children of how not every adult was trustworthy.

The missing are popular feature of crime novels. From Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, the mystery posed by absence makes for compelling plots. For when someone’s movements are unaccounted for, the potential for criminal intent isn’t far behind.  The missing have featured in all my books.  In Bitter Chill, partly influenced by those murders on Sadleworth Moor, tells the story of a young girl who goes missing in the 1970s as the devastated community close in to protect their children. 

In A Deadly Thaw, a husband goes missing for fifteen years util he is killed in an a disused mortuary.  Here, I wanted absence to cover up something more sinister.

My latest book, A Patient Fury, also has a missing person at the heart of the story. Elizabeth Winson who in 1980 pins a note of her shop stating that she’ll be ‘back in two minutes’, is never seen again. Police are convinced that she is a victim of her controlling husband but her adult children are less sure. Elizabeth Winson was a bored wife desperate to escape the confines of a small town and a verbally abusive marriage.

The legacy of Elizabeth’s disappearance is what obsesses us most about the missing. Are they out there in the world leading a parallel life or is there or a more sinister explanation? There’s also the sense of time in suspension. We get older while that person remains perpetually frozen in time. Husbands remarry, children grow up and have their own offspring and, all the time, in the back of their minds is the question. What really happened?

My books have dual timelines. This is partly a reflection of the Peak District setting where crimes often have a long genesis. I wanted to have a contemporary disappearance to balance the devastation wrought by Elizabeth’s vanishing. This time there is no easily identifiable missing person but a shadowy figure in the background. It’s a modern take on the concept of missing. Who is the fourth presence that my detective Connie Childs can sense but not identify?

In A Patient Fury, as in all my books, I want the missing to recover their voice, however uncomfortable the truth might be. I’m clearly as bad as the next person in ultimately needing motive and enlightenment.

A Patient Fury by Sarah Ward (Published by Faber & Faber)

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 When Detective Constable Connie Childs is dragged from her bed to the fire-wrecked property on Cross Farm Lane she knows as she steps from the car that this house contains death. Three bodies discovered - a family obliterated - their deaths all seem to point to one conclusion: One mother, one murderer. But D.C. Childs, determined as ever to discover the truth behind the tragedy, realises it is the fourth body - the one they cannot find - that holds the key to the mystery at Cross Farm Lane. What Connie Childs fails to spot is that her determination to unmask the real murderer might cost her more than her health - this time she could lose the thing she cares about most: her career.

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Books to Look Forward to from Faber and Faber

July 2018

Cold Desert Sky is by Rod Reynolds.  No one wanted to say it to me, that the girls were dead. But I knew. Late 1946 and Charlie Yates and his wife Lizzie have returned to Los Angeles, trying to stay anonymous in the city of angels. But when Yates, back in his old job at the Pacific Journal, becomes obsessed by the disappearance of two aspiring Hollywood starlets, Nancy Hill and Julie Desjardins, he finds it leads him right back to his worst fear: legendary Mob boss Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel, a man he once crossed, and whose shadow he can't shake. As events move from LA to the burgeoning Palace of Sin in the desert, Las Vegas - where Siegel is preparing to open his new Hotel Casino, The Flamingo - Rod Reynolds once again shows his skill at evoking time and place. With Charlie caught between the FBI and the mob, can he possibly see who is playing who, and find out what really happened to the two girls?

September 2018

Driven off the desert road and left for dead, Claire DeWitt knows that it is someone from her past trying to kill her, she just doesn't know who. Making a break for it from the cops who arrive on the scene, she sets off in search of the truth, or whatever version of it she can find. But perhaps the biggest mystery of all lies deeper than that, somewhere out there on the ever rolling highway of life. Set between modern day Las Vegas and LA, The Infinite Blacktop sees Claire at her lowest point yet, wounded and disorientated, but just about hanging on. Too smart for her own good, too damaged to play by the rules, too crazy for most - have you got what it takes to follow the self-appointed 'best detective in the world'? The Infinite Blacktop is by Sara Gran

The Shrouded Path is by Sarah Ward.  The past won't stay buried forever. November, 1957: Six teenage girls walk in the churning Derbyshire mists, the first chills of winter in the air. Their voices carrying across the fields, they follow the old train tracks into the dark tunnel of the Cutting. Only five appear on the other side. October, 2014: a dying mother, feverishly fixated on a friend from her childhood, makes a plea: 'Find Valerie.' Mina's elderly mother had never discussed her childhood with her daughter before. So who was Valerie? Where does her obsession spring from? DC Connie Childs, off balance after her last big case, is partnered up with new arrival to Bampton, Peter Dahl. Following up on what seems like a simple natural death, DC Childs' old instincts kick in, pointing her right back to one cold evening in 1957. As Connie starts to broaden her enquiries, the investigation begins to spiral increasingly close to home.

October 2018

Under the Night is by Alan Glynn.  1950s Manhattan - Ad man Ned Sweeney finds himself an unwitting participant in MK Ultra trials, the CIA's covert study of psychoactive drugs. The experiment introduces him to MDT-48, a mind-expanding smart drug, which takes him away from his wife and young son and straight to the corridors of the richest and most powerful people of his day. But before long, Ned is dead. Over 60 years later, Ned's grandson, Ray, meets Clay Proctor - a retired government official who may be able to illuminate not only Ned's life and death, and also the truth behind the mysterious MDT-48. Both a sequel and prequel to Alan Glynn's classic debut.