2022 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize shortlist

 

The following six authors are all in the running for the £10,000 prize. Click on each of their names to find out more about the book and read an interview with the author:

The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield (Quercus)

Where Blood Runs Cold by Giles Kristian (Bantam Press, Transworld Publishers)

The Vacation by John Marrs (Pan, Pan Macmillan)

The Plant Hunter by T.L. Mogford (Welbeck Publishing Group)

Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo (Virago, Little, Brown Book Group)

Moonlight and the Pearler's Daughter by Lizzie Pook (Mantle, Pan Macmillan)

Submissions were open to writers of any nationality, writing in English. Authors from Nigeria, Canada, the UK and UK/Norway are represented on the shortlist, the six being selected from a total of 129 submissions.

Niso Smith, Founder, commented:

‘It’s uplifting to see debut and established authors alike embracing their sense of adventure. Adventures are about growth and living in the moment, and these authors all transport us to a specific moment in time. Whether we’re skiing in the bitter cold of northern Norway, or sailing up China’s Yangtze River, our disbelief is magically suspended.

The authors demonstrate determination, show us true jeopardy, pique our curiosity and allow us to form a human connection with their characters. Congratulations to all six for these riveting novels.’

The Prize works with a panel of librarians and library staff from across the UK to select the shortlist which focuses on ‘An Adventure for Everyone.’ The Foundation encourages readers to select the one that appeals to them most, then read, share and recommend. Readers can download the shortlist poster here and share with their library, bookshop, or in their living room window.

These six titles are now with this year's judging panel. As part of an online campaign over the summer months, you will be invited to participate in the Reader's Vote, which will see the readers' votes equate to one seat on the judging panel. The campaign will also include a series of online author events plus engagement opportunities for libraries and reading groups.

Read what the idea of adventure means to the judges here.

The winner of the Best Published Novel will be revealed on 21st September 2022 at an online awards ceremony. Keep up to date with all activity in the meantime via our twitter @Wilbur_Niso_Fdn.

Cover Story: The Life of Crime – by Martin Edwards

Writers like me hate to admit it, but when it comes to selling books, the cover artwork is just as important as the contents. Booksellers make judgments about what to stock based on the cover artwork they see in publishers’ catalogues. Book buyers, too, are drawn to some covers rather than others. And the same is even true online, where the ‘thumbnail’ image of a book poses special design challenges. So when I was working on my history of crime fiction, The Life of Crime, I kept wondering how my publishers, HarperCollins, would approach the question of the cover.

I was truly delighted to be told that the brief had been given to Steve Leard. Steve is a freelance graphic designer based in Plymouth, specialising in book design, branding and illustration. After initially getting his break in the publishing world by working at Bloomsbury, he now regularly designs covers for publishers both large and small and around the world. I was already familiar with his meticulous approach because he’d designed the wonderful artwork for a previous book of mine. This was Howdunit, a book about the art and graft of crime writing which I put together to celebrate the Detection Club’s ninetieth birthday – so it contained essays by ninety different writers.

‘Sometimes,’ Steve explained, ‘the challenge itself is actually the key to solving the design problem. With so many names to fit on one cover, a device was needed to carry them all. Crime covers often use certain tropes to identify the genre, so using a fingerprint on a crime cover isn't exactly ground-breaking, but trying to use it in a different way to give this book a twist seemed like a good idea and could help to house all of the names. I liked the idea of seeing the cover from across the bookshop or as a small thumbnail on Amazon and initially seeing something suggesting a fingerprint, but then the closer you look you realise it’s actually made of lots of names.’

The practicalities are all-important, Steve explained: ‘I initially created the design on the computer using Illustrator. From early on in the process I was keen to create a rubber stamp to physically print the design, which would add to the feel of it being an actual fingerprint. This could have been achieved to a degree on the computer, but for me, you can’t beat physically producing work away from the computer to achieve a better result. It may seem like a small detail to some, but those details mean everything really. Once the cover had been approved by the publishers, I contacted Blade Rubber Stamps in London, who turned the design into a rubber stamp, which I then printed and scanned back onto the computer.

 I suggested to him that another challenge was to retain the simplicity of the design, which is what gives the cover its strength. ‘Yes,’ Steve said. ‘It’s quite unusual in trade publishing to have no hierarchy on the cover, so not clearly having the title of the book large and clearly defined. Credit for this has to go to Claire Ward – the Art Director at Harper Collins. I’m still not sure how she managed to get this cover approved without any major changes, but I’m very pleased she did!’ Me too. The book proceeded to win the H.R.F. Keating award and was nominated for four other major prizes in Britain and the US.

The Life of Crime is a very different book, in that the contents are all my own work, rather than a combination of pieces by ninety different authors. Given that the scope of the book is wide-ranging, it made sense for Steve to focus on a relatively simple (yet eye-catching) image to give a flavour of the book, rather than trying to reflect the complexity of the genre’s evolution since the late eighteenth century, since that might risk creating an impression of clutter.

‘After the success of Howdunit,’ Steve says, ‘I wanted The Life of Crime to feel part of the same design family, so when the design had been approved I once again had a rubber stamp made to give that textured feel that worked so well on the previous book. Like Howdunit, the challenge with this cover was creating something that fits into the crime/thriller market, but not heavily relying on genre tropes and cliches. I wanted this book to feel big and iconic, to reflect the fact that it is the first major history of crime fiction in 50 years.’

As I’m writing this article ahead of publication, I’ve no idea how critics and readers will react to The Life of Crime. But at least I’m confident of one thing. It looks good on the shelf!

The Life of Crime by Martin Edwards (HarperCollins) Out 26th May 2022.

In the first major history of crime fiction in fifty years, The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their Creators traces the evolution of the genre from the eighteenth century to the present, offering brand-new perspective on the world's most popular form of fiction. Author Martin Edwards is a multi-award-winning crime novelist, the President of the Detection Club, archivist of the Crime Writers' Association and series consultant to the British Library's highly successful series of crime classics, and therefore uniquely qualified to write this book. He has been a widely respected genre commentator for more than thirty years, winning the CWA Diamond Dagger for making a significant contribution to crime writing in 2020, when he also compiled and published Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club and the novel Mortmain Hall. His critically acclaimed The Golden Age of Murder (Collins Crime Club, 2015) was a landmark study of Detective Fiction between the wars. The Life of Crime is the result of a lifetime of reading and enjoying all types of crime fiction, old and new, from around the world. In what will surely be regarded as his magnum opus, Martin Edwards has thrown himself undaunted into the breadth and complexity of the genre to write an authoritative - and readable - study of its development and evolution. With crime fiction being read more widely than ever around the world, and with individual authors increasingly the subject of extensive academic study, his expert distillation of more than two centuries of extraordinary books and authors - from the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann to the novels of Patricia Cornwell - into one coherent history is an extraordinary feat and makes for compelling reading.

More information about Martin Edwards and his work can be found on his website. You can also follow himon Twitter @medwardsbooks and also on Facebook.

Ian Rankin and Mick Herron in conversation at St Giles-in-the-Fields

 Ian Rankin and Mick Herron

On

Wednesday 8th June 2022

18:30 at St Giles-in-the-Fields, 

60 St Giles High St, London, WC2H 8LG

Join bestselling crime and thriller authors Ian Rankin and Mick Herron as they celebrate the publication of their books The Dark Remains (co-written with William McIlvanney) and Bad Actors.

 Mick’s eighth instalment of Slough House thriller, Bad Actors, finds Jackson Lamb embroiled in double dealing and the hunt for a missing agent as the rest of the slow horses add their own distinctively chaotic magic to the mix. William McIlvanney’s pioneering Laidlaw series changed the face of crime fiction, including inspiring the creation of Rebus. When he died in 2015, McIlvanney left an unfinished manuscript portraying Laidlaw’s first case; now, Ian Rankin has completed his idol’s novel, bringing to life the criminal world of 1970s Glasgow, and Laidlaw's relentless quest for truth, in The Dark Remains.

Mick Herron is the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Slough House thrillers, which have won two CWA Daggers, been published in 20 languages, and are the basis of a major TV series starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb. He is also the author of the Zoë Boehm series, and the standalone novels Reconstruction and This is What Happened.

Ian’s first novel Summer Rites remains in his bottom drawer, but his second novel, The Flood, was published in 1986, while his first Rebus novel, Knots & Crosses, was published in 1987. The Rebus series is now translated into twenty-two languages and the books are bestsellers on several continents. A regular contributor to BBC2’s Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin’s Evil Thoughts on Channel 4 in 2002 and Rankin on the Staircase for BBC Four in 2005. The Dark Remains has been shortlisted for The British Book Awards 2022 Crime and Thriller Book of the Year.

Please note: tickets including a copy of The Dark Remains will be paperback (RRP £8.99) and tickets including Bad Actors will be hardback (RRP £18.99). Both authors will be signing books at the end of the event.

More information about the event and how to buy tickets can be found here. 

In the Lyme Crime Spotlight: William Shaw

Name:- William Shaw

Job: Journalist and Author

Website:- http://williamshaw.com

Twitter: @William1shaw

Introduction:-

William Shaw is the author of two different series. The DS Alex Cupidi series which is set in Dungerness where DS Cupidi works in the Kent Serious Crime Squad, and The Breen and Tozer series which is set in 1968/69 London. He is also the author of the standlone novels The Birdwatcher written as William Shaw and Dead Rich written as G W Shaw.

Current book?

Dead Rich, which is set aboard a Russian billionaire’s super yacht in the Caribbean. When I wrote it I had no idea it would be so topical. The book closes at the point that the awful war in Ukraine starts. I grew up loving the classic adventure thrillers by people like Neville Shute and Alistair MacLean. It was probably something to do with having been through lockdown, but I wanted to write a book which had some of that big screen romantic sense of adventure in it. 

Favourite book

That changes all the time. Graham Greene’s The Quiet American still stands up. I love the way it exposes the way our will to do good in politics is often not as innocent as we think it is. 

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why? 

I was thinking that maybe inviting Elly Griffiths’s character Nelson and putting him in the same room as M.W. Craven’s Washington Poe, but I’ve a feeling neither would talk at all. It would probably be much more fun to put the deeply eccentric and self-absorbed Tilly Bradshaw and the more empathetic Ruth Galloway together and watch the fall-out from two of my favourite crime fiction intellectuals.

How do you relax?

I help run something called Brighton Ceilidh Collective. We put on dances every month in Brighton. Playing low-level folk tunes is a) very different from writing and b) very good for the neurones.

What book do you wish you had written and why? 

Again, that changes all the time. The last book I read with some jealously was Mark Billingham’s Rabbit Hole which was a great example of how crime fiction can do very serious stuff – and it’s also very darkly funny.

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as an author?

Keep it simple. I have been writing fiction constantly since I was in my twenties. Though I won some couple of prizes with short stories, it took me until my bloody fifties to get a novel published. Lack of self-confidence which I had in spades makes you over-reach. When the light bulb came on I found how keeping things simple gave me much more power.

Why did you initially prefer to write two different series as opposed to a standalone novel and now that you have written a standalone what prompted you to do so? 

I wrote one series, then broke out to do a standalone with my fourth book, The Birdwatcher. I had no intention at all of turning that into a series but somehow the secondary character Alex Cupidi wouldn’t shut up, so she ended up forming the backbone of the second series, set in Kent. A lot of people do standalones now but it had always been my intention to mix them up. I think each form energises the other. 

What are you looking forward to at Lyme Crime?

It’s my first time there. I’m looking forward to everything! I’m from the South West so it feels like home turf – and will hopefully bring a new crowd along to see what a great community crime writers and readers now are. And Paddy Magrane who organised it is one of the loveliest people in crime, so I’m confident it will have a great atmosphere.

Dead Rich by G W Shaw (Riverrun) Published 26 May 2022 

Super yachts are secretive, like their owners. The bigger the richer. Like castles, they are created to inspire awe. Like castles too, they are defended. They are an entire world, separate from the rest of us. Kai, a carefree once-successful musician is invited by his new Russian girlfriend Zina to join her family’s Caribbean holiday. Impulsively accepting he learns that Zina is the daughter of a Russian oligarch, Stepan Pirumov and that the trip is aboard his yacht, the Zinaida, moored in St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. On arrival Kai discovers that the head of security has been arrested, armed guards are below deck, there’s an onboard panic room and a strong sense of all not being quite right beneath the gleaming surfaces of the Pirumov’s lives. An unnerving presence punctures the atmosphere: a murderous imposter is on board the Zinaida, but who is it?

You can also find him on Facebook.

Tickets can be bought here:- https://www.lymecrime.co.uk/tickets--contact.html

 

SlaughterFest 2022

Slaughterfest the crime writing festival curated by internationally bestselling author Karin Slaughter is back! 

In The Lyme Crime Spotlight :- Barbara Nadel

 Name:- Barbara Nadel

Job:- Author

Twitter:- @BarbaraNadel

Introduction:

Barbara Nadel is the author of three different series. The Inspector Çetin Ikmen books which are police procedurals set in Istanbul, Turkey. The Francis Hancock Series featuring a crime-solving undertaker and the Mumtaz Hakim and Lee Arnold Series who have a small detective agency. Deadly Web the seventh book in the Inspector Ikmen series won the CWA Silver Dagger in 2005. In 2006 Last Rites was the winner of the Swedish Jury magazine's Flintyxan ("Flint Axe") award for Best Historical Crime Novel. In 2008 Ashes to Ashes won the London Borough of Redbridge Big Book of the Year Award and in 2010 Sure and Certain Death won the London Borough of Redbridge Crime Fiction Book of the Year Award.

Current book: 

This is called 'Bride Price' and is an Inspector Ikmen mystery.

Favourite Book: 

'The Alexandria Quartet' by Lawrence Durrell.

How do you relax? 

I don't. I appear to be incapable.

Which book do you wish you had written and why:

'Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem' by Peter Ackroyd. To me this is the epitome of a mysterious London book. And because London is my home and I was brought up with tales of its music halls, magicians and seers, I wish I'd written this.

What would you say to your younger self if you were starting out as an author?

Have confidence in your talent and don't be put off by those who tell you you're bound to fail.

Why do you prefer to write two different series as opposed to a standalone novel and would you consider writing a standalone novel? 

I think I have to have my psychologist's hat on here. In series, I like to see how characters develop over time and how they respond to different scenarios and challenges across the courses of their lives. I have many ideas for standalone books and would love to write one or more in the future. Plans are afoot, but not yet come to fruition.

What are you looking forward to at Lyme Crime? 

So much! Seeing so many friends is the big one for me. Also going somewhere I've never been before and, of course, Derek Farrell's 'Noir at the Bar'.

Bride Price by Barbara Nadel (Headline) Out Now

When jeweller Fahrettin Muftugolu is found dead in his apartment in the Istanbul district of Vefa, it looks like suicide. Searching the jeweller's home, Inspector Mehmet Suleyman and his team come across a hoard of extraordinary artefacts including solid gold religious relics and a mummified human head. But are they real and, if so, who owns these priceless possessions? As his colleagues begin their investigation, Suleyman is distracted by troubles of his own. His wedding to Gonca Serekoglu is days away, but when Gonca receives her bridal bedcover from a Roma haberdasher and discovers that it is covered in blood, she sees this as a curse on their marriage. Suleyman asks his old friend Cetin Ikmen to help him uncover the truth, but the task is not that simple... Meanwhile, as the stories swirling around Muftugolu become increasingly sinister, the dead man's wife appears, laying claim to his valuables, and Suleyman is drawn into a dark and dangerous world of smuggling and savagery . . .

Tickets can be bought here :- https://www.lymecrime.co.uk/tickets--contact.html

Anthony Award Nominees

 The Bouchercon 2022 committee have announced the Nominees for the 2022 ANTHONY AWARDS. 

Voting for the Anthony Awards will happen at Bouchercon from Thursday 8 September 2022 at 7:00am and end on Saturday 10 October at 1:00pm. Winners will be announced at the Anthony Awards ceremony at Bouchercon 2022 in Minneapolis. 

Congratulations to all the nominated authors.

Capital Crime launches 2022 Festival Programme and announces new venue

 

Capital Crime launched their 2022 programme with a bang last night at leading independent bookshop, Goldsboro Books, at a party to announce their stellar line up and spectacular new location. 

Taking place in the shadow of the iconic Battersea Power Station from 29th September – 1st October 2022, Capital Crime will bring together readers, authors, industry figures and the local community for the first major literary festival held on the site for a weekend of fun, innovation and celebration of crime fiction. 

Consisting of over 40 events and over 150 panelists, the line-up will include appearances from Peter James, Kate Mosse, Mark Billingham, Richard Osman, Robert Harris, SA Cosby, Dorothy Koomson, Jeffrey Archer, Anthony Horowitz, Charlie Higson, Jeffery Deaver, Lucy Foley, Bella Mackie, Ragnar Jónasson, Paula Hawkins, Reverend Richard Coles, Mark Edwards, Claire McGowan, Ben Aaronovitch and Former President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Lady Hale, in conversation with Harriet Tyce. 

Their full schedule of innovative panel talks will be announced later in the summer. 

As part of the live festival this year, Capital Crime’s Social Outreach Initiative will be returning for a third year with the aim to create an inclusive, safe space where state school students with an interest in books can engage with authors, agents, editors and publishers to help demystify the publishing industry. 

The festival will also be launching the coveted Fingerprint Awards, which celebrate the best in genre, as chosen by readers. In 2022 the Fingerprints will present eight awards as well as a prestigious lifetime achievement award. 

Co-founded by David Headley, the owner of one of London’s destination bookshops, which attracts visitors from all over the world, Capital Crime 2022 will serve as a major London attraction, following the regeneration of the local Battersea area and improved transport links. 

Festival Founder, David Headley, said: “I am so delighted that Goldsboro Books and Capital Crime, along with our valued festival sponsors, will be working in partnership this year to bring a bigger and better live celebration of crime fiction back to London. We were so proud of what we achieved at our inaugural festival, and look forward to welcoming authors and readers to our new, exciting venue.” 

Festival Director, Lizzie Curle, said: “After what’s been an emotional few years, we are so grateful to our readers, authors and sponsors for their support, and are thrilled to be reuniting household name authors, new voices in fiction and their fans at our new home in Battersea Park. Though this Capital Crime event may look a little different from the outside; diversity, inclusivity and accessibility remain at the heart of our festival. We can’t wait to celebrate the best genre in the world, and hope everyone will agree it’s been worth the wait.” 

With diversity, accessibility, inclusivity and readers at the heart of the festival, Capital Crime this year will take place in a series of large stretch-tented venues for multiple panel events, signing area, a stunning bar area central to the festival, a pop up Goldsboro Books bookshop in the iconic Pump House Gallery, and an array of London’s tastiest street food traders. 

Weekend and Day Passes are available from the Capital Crime website: 

www.capitalcrime.org/product/capital-crime-festival-2022

Partners in Crime by Nicola Upson

There was something a while back on Twitter that got me thinking - one of those polls where you put contrasting crime writers together to see what a collaboration of their work might look like. Although it wasn’t listed as one of the options, the combination that instantly sprang to mind was Josephine Tey and Margery Allingham - now that’s a book I would love to read. 

Tey and Allingham admired each other’s work and were roughly contemporary, with their first detective novels appearing a year apart: Allingham’s The White Cottage Mystery in 1928 and Tey’s The Man in the Queue (published under her Gordon Daviot pseudonym) in 1929. As far as I’m aware, the two never met in real life, although Tey spent a lot of time in Essex, where Allingham lived. But that’s the beauty of fiction - things that you wish for can happen, and although they don’t go as far as collaborating on a novel in Dear Little Corpses, a chance meeting starts a lasting friendship, and they attempt to solve a crime that touches them both. I really can’t remember a time when I’ve had such fun in bringing two characters together.

They are, of course, very different writers, with contrasting styles - although both write beautifully. Their heroes - Albert Campion and Alan Grant - are much loved but very different men; and whereas Tey often referred in letters to periods of unashamed idleness, Allingham came from a ‘fiction factory’ of professional writers and had published more than eight million words by the time she was thirty-five. But the things they have in common are even more obvious: a deep love of the English countryside, expressed so tellingly in their books; an excitement for London and a passion for theatre (they could easily have met over a gin and tonic in the foyer of the Old Vic); and a fascination with crimes from real life, which filter into novels like The Franchise Affair, The Daughter of Time and The China Governess. 

Most importantly, though, Tey and Allingham share a wit and humanity which is very present in their work: part of the reason we love their books, I think, is because we love them. In each case, the voice that springs so vividly from these pages is wonderful company, and their books reward continued rereading in a way that very few crime novels do. I’m often asked how this series started, and the simplest answer is probably this: I wanted to get to know Tey better, to spend time with her beyond that small but perfectly formed collection of eight crime novels - nine if you count Kif.

And that’s another thing that she and Allingham have in common - they each addressed a world war through a book that was out of character with the rest of their work. Kif (also published in 1929 as Daviot) is Tey’s unflinching account of a boy’s struggle to find his place in society when he returns from fighting in the trenches. The Oaken Heart - Allingham’s only work of non-fiction, published in 1941 - is the story of an English village during the early days of the second world war. The village in question is Tolleshunt D’Arcy in Essex (more famous now for the Bamber murders at White House Farm, which lies on its outskirts) and the book has a cast of characters every bit as rich as Allingham’s novels. As much as I love her fiction, The Oaken Heart is my favourite of her books, and its candour and insight were a huge influence on Dear Little Corpses. She gave me my title, too, which is taken from one of her letters, quoted in Julia Jones’s wonderful biography, The Adventures of Margery Allingham.

At the time this book is set, Tey and Allingham still had their finest work ahead of them. I have no doubt that they’ll team up again further down the series, and I’m looking forward to it already.

Dear Little Corpses by Nicola Upson is published by Faber. (Out Now)

It takes a village to bury a child.1 September, 1939. As the mass evacuation takes place across Britain, thousands of children leave London for the countryside, but when a little girl vanishes without trace, the reality of separation becomes more desperate and more deadly for those who love her. In the chaos and uncertainty of war, Josephine struggles with the prospect of change. As a cloud of suspicion falls across the small Suffolk village she has come to love, the conflict becomes personal, and events take a dark and sinister turn.

Joffe Books Prize 2022

 

Oyinkan Braithwaite and Ella Diamond Kahn to judge Joffe Books Prize 2022 

Joffe Books is proud to announce that the second year of the Joffe Books Prize will launch 1 May 2022. The Joffe Books Prize is a direct response to the paucity of diverse voices being published in crime fiction. Its aim is to find writers from communities that are underrepresented in the genre and support them in building sustainable careers, while simultaneously discovering brilliant new talent to join our bestselling list.

The winner will receive £1,000, a two-book publishing deal with one of the UK’s leading independent publishers and an editorial consultation with one of the judges. This year, the judging panel will include Oyinkan Braithwaite, critically acclaimed, award-winning author of the bestselling My Sister, the Serial Killer, and Ella Diamond Kahn, co-founder and partner of the Diamond Kahn & Woods Literary Agency.

Enthusiastically received by trade and prospective writers alike, the inaugural 2021 prize far exceeded expectations.

Northumberland-based Christie J. Newport was announced the winner in the Bookseller in December 2021. She was awarded a two-book publishing deal with Joffe Books and her debut is set to launch in autumn 2022.

From the shortlist, three authors have gone on to receive agency representation and a fourth will also be published by Joffe Books in 2022.

Notably, the prize saw a dramatic upswing in the number of submissions by crime writers and agents representing those from underrepresented backgrounds, and we were delighted to welcome to the list CWA John Creasey (New Blood) longlister Meeti Shroff-Shah, Paula Lennon and Adam Lyndon.

Joffe Books invites all unagented authors/entrants from Black, Asian, Indigenous and minority ethnic backgrounds writing in one of our favourite crime fiction genres to submit for the chance to win a two-book publishing deal, a £1,000 cash prize and the opportunity to turn their fantastic manuscripts into bestsellers.

Oyinkan Braithwaite, bestselling author of My Sister, the Serial Killer, says: “It is great that Joffe Prize is dedicating resources to fulfil its commitment to diversify crime fiction. I am thrilled to be a part of the movement to help authors from minority groups achieve their dreams.”

Ella Diamond Kahn, co-founder of the Diamond Kahn & Woods Literary Agency, says: “It’s really important to highlight and celebrate diverse voices in all genres of books in order to truly create a more inclusive publishing industry. The Joffe Books Prize, in its second year, is already proving to be a fantastic way of doing exactly that, by discovering thrilling new crime writers. I’m so thrilled to have been invited to be one of the judges, and cannot wait to dive in.”

Emma Grundy Haigh, Editorial Director at Joffe Books, says: “I was overwhelmed by the outcomes of the first prize cycle — it’s been truly wonderful to see how the careers of the shortlistees are already starting to take shape. I’m elated that the Joffe Books Prize is entering its second year. The prize represents a small but vital step towards welcoming a far greater diversity of talent into crime fiction, amplifying underrepresented voices and continuing our commitment to widen access into publishing.

“This year, I am delighted to be joined by the utterly brilliant Oyinkan Braithwaite and Ella Diamon Kahn for the second cycle of the Joffe Books Prize. Oyinkan hardly needs introducing: her breakout novel My Sister, the Serial Killer not only took the crime fiction world by storm, it shook the genre to its core. Ella is a brilliant advocate both for making publishing more accessible and for creating commercial fiction at its finest. I cannot wait to see where the prize takes us this year.”

THE PRIZE

The prize seeks to discover a new crime fiction writer to join our bestselling list and aims to champion authors from Black, Asian, Indigenous and minority ethnic backgrounds writing in one of our favourite crime fiction genres: electrifying psychological thrillers, cosy mysteries, gritty police procedurals, twisty chillers, unputdownable suspense mysteries, shocking domestic noirs . . .

The winner will receive £1,000 and be offered a two-book publishing deal with Joffe Books, as well as an editorial consultation with one of the judges and a two-year membership to the Society of Authors. Shortlisted authors will receive editorial feedback.

HOW TO ENTER

Entrants are invited to submit their full-length manuscript, written in English, a short synopsis of their work and their biography to prize@joffebooks.com.

The opening date for entries is 1 May 2022. The competition period will close 30 September 2022, 23.59 p.m. BST. No entries received outside this period will be accepted.

Full entry details can be found at www.joffebooks.com/prize

THE JUDGES

Submissions will be judged by Oyinkan Braithwaite, Ella Diamond Kahn and Emma Grundy Haigh, as well as other members of the Joffe Books team. The winner of the competition will be selected by these judges based on their work’s quality and commercial potential.

ABOUT JOFFE BOOKS

Joffe Books is one of the UK’s leading independent publishers of excellent commercial fiction, especially crime and mystery fiction. We passionately love books and are renowned for working closely with authors from across the world to create fantastic books and turning them into bestsellers. Since 2014, we have published more than 700 books by over 80 authors, sold over 20 million books and been shortlisted for Independent Publisher of the Year three times at the British Book Awards and for the Alison Morrison Diversity Award at the 2022 Independent Publishing Awards. Our roster of award-winning authors and New York Times, USA Today and Amazon bestsellers includes Joy Ellis, Faith Martin, Robert Goddard, Simon Brett, Patricia MacDonald and Stella Cameron.

While Joffe Books maintains open submissions for all authors, this competition is designed to offer an exclusive opportunity to Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers, who are particularly underrepresented in crime fiction publishing.

ABOUT OYINKAN BRAITHWAITE

Oyinkan Braithwaite is a graduate of Creative Writing and Law from Kingston University. Following her degree, she worked as an assistant editor at a Nigerian publishing house and has been freelancing as a writer and graphic designer since. She has had short stories published in anthologies and has also self-published work. She is the author of My Sister, the Serial Killer, which received international critical and popular acclaim, winning the 2019 LA Times Award for Best Crime Thriller, and being shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019, and the British Book Awards 2020 in two categories. It was also longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019, and the 2020 Dublin Literary Award. My Sister, the Serial Killer is being translated into 30 languages and has also been optioned for film.

ABOUT ELLA DIAMOND KAHN

The co-founder of the Diamond Kahn & Woods Literary Agency, Ella Diamond Kahn worked at Andrew Nurnberg Associates as an assistant literary agent for three years. She has long sought to build bridges for those wishing to get into publishing, serving as chair of the Society of Young Publishers in 2012 and chair of the Young Stationers’ Committee in 2018. She has regularly worked with London’s Writer Development Agency Spread the Word, and has also been involved with the WriteNow programme. She was included in the Bookseller’s list of Rising Stars in 2013, and was a winner of the London Book Fair Trailblazer Award 2016. Ella is a keen advocate of upmarket commercial fiction. She is passionate about finding and championing new voices, including those traditionally underrepresented in publishing.

In The Lyme Crime Spotlight: Charlotte Philby

Name: Charlotte Philby

Job: Author

Website: http://www.charlottephilby.com

Twitter: @PhilbyWrites 

Introduction:

Charlotte Philby is a former editor, reporter and columnist. Her grandfather was Kim Philby. Her debut novel Part of the Family was Waterstone's Thriller of the month in May 2020 Her second novel A Double Life was not only one of the New York Post's best book for the summer 2021 but also the Time's book 2020 and The Observer's thriller of the month. The Second Woman, her third book was a Mail on Sunday best new fiction book as well as being a Time's thriller of the month pick. Her most recent book is Edith and Kim. 

Current book? 

An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie. It is a powerful, original and beautifully written fictional account of one young man's life growing up in Stapleton Road, in Bristol - it's a debut novel about masculinity, love, friendship, loyalty and betrayal, and it's so impressive I cannot believe the writer is only twenty-three years old.

Favourite book

Too many to choose from but Alex Garland's The Beach is seminal for me because of where I was at in my life when I read it.

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

Edith Tudor-Hart and Kim Philby - the two characters from my novel Edith and Kim, which reimagines the lives of my grandfather (Kim), and the woman who recruited him to the Soviet cause (Edith) - so that I could grill them on all the questions I was trying to answer when writing the book.

How do you relax?

Going for walks with my kids and the dog we share with my mum (although the dog runs off and refuses to come back and the kids generally spend the whole time shouting in glee or protest, so it's rarely very relaxing), More likely, watching television and drinking red wine. My favourite comfort watches include Inspector Morse and Bosch, or if the children are still awake, Brooklyn 99, which is the only thing we all agree on as a family.

What book do you wish you had written and why?

Victoria Selman's forthcoming Truly, Darkly, Deeply because it's a fresh and genius take on the traditional serial killer story. Or The Girls by Emma Cline because I was obsessed with the Mansons as a teenager and love how she managed to bring a well-trodden crime story to life in a new and brilliant way.

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as an author?

Don't rush, you don't have to do everything at once. And never read your reviews.

Why do you prefer to write standalone books as opposed to a series and would you consider writing a series.

I am easily bored so I worry I would tire of writing the same character again and again. But then I do tend to be fascinated by recurring themes - women leading duplicitous lives, familial betrayal, love - and subverting traditionally male stories by placing women at the centre of the narrative. My first three novels are all stand-alone but very much connected, and best read in chronological order!

What are you looking forward to at Lyme Crime?

Seeing some of the best writers in the business descend on my adopted home-city. Watch out now...

Edith and Kim by Charlotte Philby (HarperCollins) Out Now

To betray, you must first belong...In June 1934, Kim Philby met his Soviet handler, the spy Arnold Deutsch. The woman who introduced them was called Edith Tudor-Hart. She changed the course of 20th century history. Then she was written out of it. Drawing on the Secret Intelligence Files on Edith Tudor-Hart, along with the private archive letters of Kim Philby, this finely worked, evocative and beautifully tense novel - by the granddaughter of Kim Philby - tells the story of the woman behind the Third Man.

You can also find Charlotte Philby on Instagram @Charlottte_Philby

Tickets can be bought here :- https://www.lymecrime.co.uk/tickets--contact.html

Winners of 2022 CRIMEFEST Awards Announced

 

CRIMEFEST, one of Europe’s leading crime writing conventions, has announced the winners of its annual awards.

Now in its 15th year, the awards honour the best crime books released in 2021 in the UK.

The genre is the most popular in the UK. Nielsen BookData’s Books & Consumers survey data shows crime fiction sales in the UK across all formats stood at 54m in 2021; a 7% rise on pre-pandemic levels.

The winner of the anticipated Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award, and £1,000 prize monies, is David Heska Wanbli Weiden for Winter Counts published by Simon & Schuster.

Named by the New York Time as one of “the most critically acclaimed young novelists working now,”Winter Counts was called a “once-in-a-generation thriller” by the Los Angeles Times. Weiden is the first Native American author to win an Anthony Award and the Thriller Award. Set on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, Winter Counts is an examination of the broken criminal justice system on reservations, and a meditation on Native identity.

A further £1,000 prize is awarded to Richard Osman and actor Lesley Manville, reader of Osman’s The Man Who Died Twice. It’s the second year the pair has scooped the Audible Sounds of Crime Award, sponsored by Audible and voted by Audible UK listeners, after winning in 2021 for his phenomenal debut smash-hit, The Thursday Murder Club.

All category winners will receive a Bristol Blue Glass commemorative award.

The eDunnit Award for the best e-book goes to Abigail Dean for Girl A. Born in Manchester, and a former bookseller for Waterstones, Dean now works as a lawyer for Google. Her astonishing debut novel about siblings who flee abusive parents received widespread acclaim as a story of redemption, horror and love. It was a Sunday Times and New York Times global best seller.

Winner of the H.R.F Keating Award for best biographical or critical book on crime fiction is Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks, edited by Anna von Planta, which was published for the centenary of Highsmith’s birth in 2021. It was praised by the New York Times as offering “the most complete picture ever published” of the canonical author.

The Last Laugh Award goes to Mick Herron’s Slough House. The Jackson Lamb series of dysfunctional British intelligence agents has recently been adapted by Apple TV starring Oscar-winner Gary Oldman.

Best Crime Novel for Children, aged 8-12, goes to M.G. Leonard’s birdwatching detective, Twitch. The internationally bestselling author tells a mystery adventure about friendship, bravery and birds, and Twitch is a celebration of the natural world.

Best Crime Novel for Young Adults, aged 12-16, is awarded to

Angeline Boulley for Firekeeper’s Daughter. The novel was praised by the Guardian as, “an interrogation of racist misogyny and a swift-paced, compelling thriller.”

This year also sees the introduction of the Thalia Proctor Memorial Award for Best Adapted TV Crime Drama. The award is named in honour of Thalia, a CrimeFest team member and a much-loved figure in the world of crime fiction, and who sadly died earlier this year.

The award is decided entirely by public vote from a longlist of the 43 TV programmes broadcast on British TV in the last year, based on a crime book. Ann Cleeves won the inaugural gong for Shetland, beating a strong shortlist that featured Antony Horowitz for Alex Rider, M.C. Beaton for Agatha Raisin and James Runcie for Grantchester.

Adrian Muller, Co-host of CRIMEFEST, said: The crime genre has dominated the book charts and our TV screens, keeping many of us company, particularly in the last two challenging years. The genre never fails to offer escapism and entertainment, as well as often exploring big issues and emotions. As a genre that also often makes sense of a chaotic world, it’s helped many people and is something we need today more than ever. We’re proud to celebrate the best the genre offers.”

CRIMEFEST had to postpone its 2020 and 2021 conventions, due to Covid restrictions. Hosted in Bristol, it is one of the biggest crime fiction events in Europe, and one of the most popular dates in the international crime fiction calendar, with circa 60 panel events and 150 authors over four days.

Leading British crime fiction reviewers and reviewers of fiction for children and young adults, alongside the members of the School Library Association (SLA) form the CRIMEFEST judging panels, aside from Audible Sounds of Crime Award in which Audible listeners establish the shortlist and the winning title.

Co-host of CRIMEFEST, Donna Moore, added: “We are proud to be one of the few genre awards that recognise e-books and audiobooks, humour, children and Young Adult crime fiction novels. We aim to be the most inclusive of awards to reflect the values of our convention, and the incredible diversity and reach of the genre which dominates the cultural landscape.”

CRIMEFEST was created following the hugely successful one-off visit to Bristol in 2006 of the American Left Coast Crime convention. It was established in 2008. It follows the egalitarian format of most US conventions, making it open to all commercially published authors and readers alike.

2022 CrimeFest Award Winners

SPECSAVERS DEBUT CRIME NOVEL AWARD

Winter Count by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Simon & Schuster)

AUDIBLE SOUNDS OF CRIME AWARD

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman read by Lesley Manville (Penguin Random House Audio)

eDUNNIT AWARD

Girl A by Abigail Dean, (HarperCollins)

H.R.F. KEATING AWARD

Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks edited by Anna von Planta (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

LAST LAUGH AWARD

Slough House by Mick Herron (Baskerville, John Murray Press)

BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR CHILDREN

Twitch by M.G. Leonard (Walker Books)

BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR YOUNG ADULTS

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley (Rock the Boat)

THALIA PROCTOR MEMORIAL AWARD FOR BEST ADAPTED TV CRIME DRAMA

Shetland (season 6), based on the books by Ann Cleeves. Produced by Silverprint Pictures, part of ITV Studios; shown on BBC1.