The Reading Agency launches largest-ever UK prison book-gifting programme

Nearly half a million Quick Reads to reach prisons across the UK, with a collection shaped with people in prison and prison staff and championed by Prison Reading Laureate Lee Child

Nearly half a million Quick Reads books will be distributed across prisons in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland this autumn as part of the UK’s largest-ever prison book-gifting programme.

Delivered by The Reading Agency as part of the National Year of Reading 2026, the programme brings together 11 Quick Reads selected with input from people in prison and prison staff.

Crime and thriller writing is strongly represented in the collection, led by internationally bestselling author and the UK’s first Prison Reading Laureate Lee Child, alongside a broader selection spanning memoir, wellbeing, contemporary fiction and creative writing.

The collection includes books by A. A. Dhand, Dreda Say Mitchell, Fiona Cummins, Leye Adenle and Alex Wheatle, alongside memoir and wellbeing titles by Andy McNab, Lemn Sissay, Dr Alex George and Cathy Rentzenbrink.

Nearly 500,000 Quick Reads books will be distributed across prisons in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, helping make engaging, accessible books available to people in custody across the UK. 

The landmark programme marks the 20th anniversary of Quick Reads and has been made possible with funding from The Henry Smith Foundation, with additional support from The Balcombe Trust and Clays.

©Sigrid Estrada

Prison Reading Laureate Lee Child said: “Reading matters in prison. Short, compelling stories can spark a renewed interest in books — and that spark can lead anywhere. Making sure that every prisoner has access to engaging, well-written books during the National Year of Reading is not just symbolic. It’s practical, purposeful and potentially life-changing.”

The need to make reading accessible within prisons remains significant. Ministry of Justice statistics for 2024–25 show that 65% of English initial-assessment results across public prisons in England were at Entry Levels 1–3, while 11% were at Level 2 or above.

Quick Reads are specifically designed to remove some of the barriers that can prevent adults from reading for pleasure. Short, compelling and accessible without being simplistic, they offer an entry point both for established readers and people who may not have picked up a book for years.

The Reading Agency is working with HM Prison and Probation Service, the Ministry of Justice, Scottish Prison Service and Northern Ireland Prison Service to support delivery across the prison estate.

Karen Napier MBE, CEO of The Reading Agency, said: “When we put a book directly into someone’s hands, we are offering more than words on a page. Reading can offer escape, connection and space for reflection, while supporting wellbeing, confidence and learning.

“At the heart of this programme is choice. We have listened to people in prison about what they want to read and are bringing together books spanning crime and thrillers, memoir, wellbeing and creative writing. We want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to find a book that grabs them and discover where reading might take them.”

The 11 books were selected with input from people in prison and prison staff, helping ensure the collection reflects a range of interests and reading experiences.

Crime and thriller writing emerged as a particularly strong thread.

High Heat by Lee Child takes a teenage Jack Reacher into New York during the 1977 blackout; Cell One by Leye Adenle is a fast-moving Lagos-set kidnap thriller; and Darkness Rising by A. A. Dhand features Bradford detective Harry Virdee.

One False Move by Dreda Say Mitchell is a tense 24-hour story about a woman newly released from prison trying to go straight, while Fiona Cummins’ A Boy Called Saul brings together a troubled teenager and former detective with a dark shared past.

But the collection deliberately offers a range of other ways into reading.

Former SAS soldier Andy McNab’s Today Everything Changes tells how learning to read and the Army’s education system changed the course of his life after a childhood marked by poverty and petty crime. At 17, McNab had the reading age of a nine-year-old.

He said: “Reading is so important, not just for education but to escape the confines of life.

“As someone who, at seventeen, had the reading age of a nine-year-old, becoming a reader changed my life. Reading not only provided me with an education and the ability to compete in the world but also sparked my imagination and that gave me a positive outlook for my future.”

Poet and author Lemn Sissay’s My Name Is Why explores his experience growing up in the care system and his fight to understand his identity, while The Mind Manual by Dr Alex George offers an accessible guide to looking after mental health and wellbeing.

Cathy Rentzenbrink’s Write It All Down encourages readers to tell their own stories, while Dead Simple brings together eight short stories by bestselling writers for readers looking for something they can dip into and enjoy. Alex Wheatle’s Witness follows a young man facing an impossible choice between truth and loyalty.

Dr Alex George said: “Reading can be a moment of stillness and a chance for your mind to escape into another world. Seeing The Mind Manual adapted as a Quick Read means more people can access support when they need it most. I’m honoured it’s part of the prison collection — reading can be a lifeline in tough moments.”

A. A. Dhand, whose Darkness Rising is among the selected books, said: “Books should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their circumstances or their previous relationship with reading.

“In prison, reading can provide far more than temporary escape. It can build confidence, create empathy and give people the opportunity to see the world and themselves differently. If the right book reaches the right person at the right moment, it can open a door that may otherwise have remained closed.”

Alongside the distribution of books, Quick Reads in Prisons will be supported by a national engagement programme designed to make reading visible, accessible and enjoyable throughout the prison estate and connect writers directly with readers.

Activities include author-led workshops and creative writing activity, dedicated National Prison Radio content around the Quick Reads titles, and practical resources and activities to help prison libraries, education teams, peer supporters and staff bring the books to life.

The programme will encourage prisons to make Quick Reads available at different places and moments throughout someone’s time in custody – from libraries, wings and education to workplaces and other shared spaces – helping create more opportunities to encounter and enjoy a book.

The project is one of the most ambitious reading-engagement programmes delivered across the UK prison estate and forms part of the National Year of Reading 2026.

THE 11 QUICK READS PRISON COLLECTION TITLES

Leye Adenle – Cell One (Simon & Schuster)

Fiona Cummins – A Boy Called Saul (Pan Macmillan)

AA Dhand – Darkness Rising (Penguin Random House)

Lee Child – High Heat (Penguin Random House)

Dr Alex George – The Mind Manual (Octopus)

Lemn Sissay – My Name Is Why (Canongate)

Dreda Say Mitchell – One False Move (Hodder)

Andy McNab – Today Everything Changes (Penguin Random House)

Alex Wheatle – Witness (Profile Books)

Cathy Rentzenbrink – Write It All Down (Pan Macmillan)

Various authors – Dead Simple (Orion)

Crime Fiction at the London St Andrews Book Festival

Val McDermid, Louise Welsh, and Chris Brookmyre 

among crime writers to appear at London St Andrew’s Book Festival

Fiction fans will have their pick of genres, with talks and panel events from well-loved novelists, including: acclaimed crime writer Val McDermid who will join Geographer Royal for Scotland Jo Sharp to discuss This Door of Seas, their contribution to the acclaimed ‘Darkland Tales’ series; former sports writer Gordon Simpson, who will chat to Clark McGinn about his gripping new golf thriller Four Deadly Swings; award-winning Scottish novelist Jenni Fagan on her darkly imaginative new novel The Delusions; Traitors star and bestselling author Harriet Tyce, whose new thriller Witch Trial explores a sensational Edinburgh murder case; and award-winning crime writer Louise Welsh, discussing The Cut Up, to name a few.

The official website can be found here. You can also find the complete programme here.

The Festival is taking place between the 16th and 22nd November 2926.

Macavity Award Winners

 

The Macavity Awards are nominated and voted on by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and friends of MRI. Congratulations to all!

The Macavity Award is named after Macavity: The Mystery Cat, in T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats!

Macavity Winners 2026 (for works published in 2025)

Best Mystery Novel

Winner

Crooks by Lou Berney (William Morrow)

Also nominated:

King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron Books)

Clown Town by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)

River of Lies by James L'Etoile (Oceanview Publishing)

The White Crow by Michael Robotham (Scribner)

All This Could Be Yours by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Minotaur Books)

Best First Mystery 

Winner

History Lessons by Zoe B. Wallbrook (Soho Press)

Also nominated:

Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes by Sandra Jackson-Opoku (Minotaur Books)

Dead Money by Jakob Kerr (Bantam Books)

Voices of the Elysian Fields by Michael Rigg (Level Best Books)

Stillwater by Tanya Scott (Grove Atlantic)

Best Mystery Nonfiction

Winner

Vacations Can Be Murder: A True Crime Lover's Travel Guide to New England by Dawn M. Barclay (Level Best Books)

Also nominated:

Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation by Michael Cannell (Minotaur Books)

Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser (Penguin Press)

V Is for Venom: Agatha Christie's Chemicals of Death by Kathryn Harkup (Bloomsbury Sigma)

Edgar Allan Poe: A Life by Richard Kopley (University of Virginia Press)

Cooler than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard by C.M. Kushins (Mariner Books)

Best Mystery Short Story

Winner

Six-Armed Robbery by Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier (in Donna Andrews Presents Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Humorous, edited by John Betancourt, Carla Coupe, and Michael Bracken, Wildside Press)

Also nominated:

“Hollywood Prometheus” by Christa Faust (in Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West, Bywater Books)

“Finding Jimmy Baldwin” by Cheryl Head (in Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West, Bywater Books)

“The Devil Himself” by Vaseem Khan (in Double Crossing Van Dine, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor, Crippen & Landru Publishers)

“The Skies Are Red” by Richie Narvaez (in On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology, edited by Curtis Ippolito, Rock and a Hard Place Press)

“Julius Katz Draws a Straight Flush” by Dave Zeltserman (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Sept/Oct 2025)

Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery

Winner

Bye Bye Blackbird by Elizabeth Crowens (Level Best Books)

Also nominated:

A Daughter's Guide to Mothers and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington Books)

City Lights by Claire M. Johnson (Level Best Books)

The Case of the Christie Conspiracy by Kelly Oliver (Boldwood Books)

The Case of the Missing Maid by Rob Osler (Kensington Books)

No. 10 Doyers Street by Radha Vatsal (Level Best Books)

A Literary Lunch at Larry’s with Karen-Mille-James

Bibliophiles enjoy discovering new literary talent especially when in the company of fellow readers, so it was delightful to be invited to lunch at Larry’s Bistro in the National Portrait Gallery, adjacent to Trafalgar Square, London.

The occasion was to celebrate the launch of author Karen Mille-James’ novel A Thousand Silent Cries which is released on the 22^nd October 2026, from Vinci books.

It was energising to be in the company of several prominent literary commentators, such as Natasha Cooper of the Literary Review [who also publishes crime fiction as well penning work as Daphne Wright], Barry Forshaw of Crimetime, Financial Times and many other publications, Elisa Bray of The Jewish Chronicle, Bloggers from Reading With Caffeine, Belles Book Sig, Suzanne Sangster, Alexis Parr of the Daily Mail, and many other Literary types. Sadly Mike Stotter, writer and editor of Shots Magazine had to cancel at the last minute due to an emergency in Norfolk.

It was a true delight to see Tony Mulliken back in action, as he is one of the key figures in the British Literary scene. Once we were seated he introduced new author Karen-Mille-James to us 

“……Karen never intended to write a book but what started as a hobby in her spare time away from the office, working in the evenings until late into the night and at weekends, has now become a new and exciting part of her life. Writing has become her passion, made easier due to her background in business, literature and linguistics and having a vivid imagination….”

Read More HERE

Karen then welcomed us all to Larry’s Bistro and gave us a short introduction to the world of Corporate Forensics Investigator Cydney Granger, and what we had in store with A Thousand Silent Cries –

The question at the heart of A Thousand Silent Cries is what happens when a secret eventually comes to light. Does the person uncovering it demand justice, or revenge, and what will they decide to do about it?

A violent act from the past perpetrated by an IRA activist, Rufus Tomlinson, tears apart the family of James Carrington QC who witnessed the murder of his parents but survived to be placed into a child witness protection programme with a new identity. He has concealed his past from everybody, including his wife, but his world is about to fall apart. Tomlinson has returned to England after living in Boston under cover for three decades, and he has now found Carrington. Thus begins their psychological game of cat and mouse.

Carrington is forced to reveal his past and confront the consequences of his actions, his life of lies and betrayal. His survival brought him fear, not only grief, and his cold behaviour to his wife especially over the loss of their young daughter, has caused her irretrievable harm and now they are both in danger.

Cydney Granger, a corporate forensics investigator and spiritual medium, is a close friend of Carrington’s wife and she is relentless in her demand for justice and accountability, against a backdrop of Tomlinson seeking revenge at any cost for what he sees as personal, and Carrington, as a barrister, wanting to ensure justice is meted out.

The Author recently spoke with Crime Time Magazine, introducing her work Here with a downloadable extract / preview. A Thousand Silent Cries is released on Thursday 22^nd October 2026, and available to pre-order from all bookstores.

The good news is that it is the third book in the Cydney Granger series, with The Shadows Behind Her Smile [Book #1] and Where In The Dark [Book #2] also available on the date of release of A Thousand Silent Cries [Book #3].

Click HERE for more information on the Cydney Granger series.

So we all moved around and chatted about this exciting new crime fiction series and the world that Karen had created. As an author, she has an eclectic and interesting background; herself an avid reader of crime / thriller fiction citing Lee Child and John Grisham as favourite authors.

Soon it was time for farewells and to thank Karen and her publishers for a lovely lunch wishing her best wishes for the upcoming release of A Thousand Silent Cries.

Shots Magazine would like to pass our thanks to Henrietta Richardson, Tom Neilson and Karen Millie-James for an excellent luncheon in the wonderful company of bibliophiles.

More Information on the work of Karen Mille-James can be found by clicking HERE or from the following links >

Web: https://www.karenmilliejames.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milliejameskaren

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karenmilliejames

X/ Twitter: https://x.com/KMillieJames

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/jzECaE

Ninas and Easter Eggs – The Game’s the Thing! by Alys Cummings

 Who can resist the lure of a hidden message?

Solving things, uncovering an answer, is one of the joys of being human – just look at the vast numbers of us drawn to both murder mysteries and puzzles. 

But there’s something that can be even more rewarding than finding the answer which is, after all, the objective of the puzzle or the end of the story. And that is something that you don’t even need to discover, an unannounced extra that has been hidden purely for the fun of it.

In video games and movies, these have long been known as Easter Eggs. (There is a legend that this arises from The Rocky Horror Picture Show where some of its very dedicated fans have spotted actual Easter Eggs rumoured to have been overlooked in an egg hunt organised by cast and crew – perhaps unlikely given the movie was filmed in the Autumn. It’s more commonly accepted the phrase arose from the game Atari where the developer hid a credit to his own name.) 

For solvers of crosswords, these hidden messages abound – you might find one spelt out in an acrostic at the start of clues, in the letters round the edge of a completed grid, or in the words at the top and bottom, for example. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that for people who love playing with words – and whose cryptic setter names are themselves playfully hiding their true identity - they are a fairly common occurrence. Some setters have regular Ninas – such as Pangakupu who frequently hides words and messages in Māori in their puzzles. Well-known examples from the Guardian include a puzzle from the much-loved setter Araucaria, who revealed the news of his late-stage cancer to solvers in a series of clues. And in 2017 those who solved a puzzle by an apparently new setter called the Sphinx discovered they were in fact completing the same puzzle that featured in that evening’s episode of Inside No.9 – The Riddle of the Sphinx. The setter was one of the show’s creators, Steve Pemberton.

In the world of the cruciverbalist these hidden messages are called Ninas, named after the work of American caricaturist Al Hirschfield, who would hide his daughter’s name, Nina, in the lines of his drawings.

In Murder Most Cryptic, my debut novel combining murder mystery with cryptic clues, the protagonist is called Nina – an allusion for crossword fans to enjoy. And there are plenty of other Ninas for readers to find, if they wish to look for them.

In the crosswords that feature in the novel they are used to give additional information about what happened to the man who collapses and dies in Chapter One. These Ninas help the recovery group at the heart of the book begin to piece together what might have happened. But there are also clues from these crosswords at the head of each chapter, with the word that is the answer hidden somewhere in the chapter itself. These are not part of the plot, just something extra for the reader, a treasure hunt if they wish to take part in it. 

One of my Ninas in Murder Most Cryptic is something I haven’t yet revealed – a message hidden in the names of all seven principal characters. I’d love to know if anyone thinks they’ve spotted it….

Readers of Murder Most Cryptic might also spot references – some more obvious than others – to other crime writers they enjoy. The books of some of my favourite authors appear and comments on a blog one of my characters writes gave some freedom to sneak in yet more allusions that readers may recognise.

This is something that authors who find their written work transferring to the screen may also indulge in - a moment of mingling among their own characters for that other type of Easter Egg, a cameo. Who spotted Mick Herron sitting alongside Diana Taverner during a funeral in the latest series of Slow Horses?

It’s a little treat, a surprise, something extra for a mystery lover.

For although a setter or writer can convey a huge range of messages hiding in plain sight, the vital thing about a Nina is that it is not necessary. The solver doesn’t need to spot it to complete the crossword, it’s simply there because it exercised the setter’s mind and they hope it will do the same for the the solver. It’s all just part of the game.

Murder Most Cryptic by Alys Cummings (Penguin Books Ltd)

Nina is a promising young journalist. She’s also an alcoholic. Once a week, she attends a recovery group in the local church hall. When a stranger walks in one night, the group think they might have a new member. Until he promptly drops dead. The police believe it’s nothing more than an accident. But the group soon realise there’s more to this mystery than meets the eye, when they discover a cryptic crossword clue hidden in the dead man’s pocket – the answer to which is Murder. As more mysterious and threatening clues start appearing in a newspaper crossword, Nina and team must work to crack this cryptic case. Can they solve the clues, and catch a killer? Or will the next crossword spell death for one of them…

More information about the author can be found on her website. You can also find her on Instagram and X @alyseliza

The Final Act of Daphne Divine by Syd Moore

The Final Act of Daphne Divine is the third instalment in my World War II series which looks at how the British Security Service exploited the Nazi’s obsession with the occult. Readers of the first two books will have a good idea of what’s coming. But I don’t think it’s a spoiler, for those who haven’t, to state a large part of the action takes place in Heinrich Himmler’s notorious occult castle. After all, it’s pictured on the cover.

Eighty years after its liberation the castle continues to exert a morbid fascination over many.

The SS Reichsführer leased Wewelsburg in 1934 as a school for the SS elite. He also wanted to create an impressive venue for SS leaders, and remodelled it in a strange, symbol-drenched style which married Arthurian legend with Germanic and Nordic rune ‘magic’. Himmler was obsessed with the occult, mysticism and esoterica. He had already commissioned Otto Rahn to search for the Holy Grail (think Indiana Jones) and a year after he leased the castle founded the Ahnenerbe, a SS division, which undertook research into folklore and prehistory. He also set up the Hexenkartothek (Witch Card Index) to compile information on the German witch hunts.

From 1935 to 1943, using the slave labour of the Wewelsburg (later Niederhagen) concentration camp inmates, the castle was remodelled extensively in a design that reflected his fixations.  When the allies closed in on 31 March 1945, Himmler ordered the SS to demolish the castle, covering evidence of the crimes committed there. The demolition squad ran out of explosives and resorted to setting the castle on fire. Most of it was gutted but the North Tower, with its crypt for rituals and the Obergruppenführersaal (Hall of the Supreme SS Leaders), survived. And so it was to there I travelled for research in 2024 and 2025.

Many aspects of the castle shocked and surprised me. For a start, I hadn’t expected there to be a ‘Family Day’ going on. But one has to remember that there’s been a building on the site for over a millennium. The Nazis’ association lasted less than eleven years and, aside from the North Tower, the rest of the castle reflects its long history as an early Medieval fort, a hunting lodge, its use during the witch trials, and its function as seat for the Prince-Bishops of Paderborn. There are displays featuring Ice Age artefacts and curious exhibits of traditional folk costumes from the region.

To visit the North Tower, however, you must pass through the Wewelsburg Memorial Museum’s permanent exhibition, Ideology and Terror of the SS. Though the material is difficult to handle, it prepares you for crossing over the moat into the monument to human suffering and totalitarian terror.

Every single person I saw walk through the arched entrance gasped and stopped. It is vast, echoing and dark, built to resemble an ancient Mycenaean tomb and is quite frankly – quite obviously – sinister. Its rounded spaces are designed to make you feel small and anxious. Your stomach plummets. The air is different, pregnant and tense, layered with so imagined horrors you can almost taste them.  I have visited many troubling sites in my life, but I have never been so affected by the atmosphere of a place.  The chamber’s architecture embraces ghastly theatre - twelve plinths are arranged around the perimeter. In the centre three steps lead to a pit, with a hole in its middle. Above it, at the apex of the ceiling, is a decorated swastika with four small square holes. Around the walls a series of paintings, Memorial Cycle by Josef Glahé, depict the human cost of war and the holocaust. The whole scene is devastating. 

On the second storey, the Obergruppenführersaal, a mosaiced runic sun wheel, in black marble, dominates the floor. The symbol was co-opted in the 1990s by extreme right wing neo-Nazi groups, who gave it the name the ‘Black Sun’. To avoid any ‘celebration’ or ‘romanticising’ of the thing, while there you are closely monitored. All visitors to the North Tower are forbidden to take photographs or wear symbols or clothing associated with far-right groups or racist slogans. Perhaps, in an effort to reclaim the space, this hall now forms part of a youth hostel that runs along the top of the castle (yes, you can stay there if you really want to). When I visited, neon orange and grey bean bags were scattered across the Nazi design.

Once I’d left, it took a while for me to ‘decompress’. The crypt’s atmosphere stays with you, as does the knowledge that you have just visited a site steeped in so much blood. Any writer or reader with a pinch of imagination cannot stop themselves from wondering - what happened within those walls?  What nasty rituals took place? Why is there a pit? What the hell is in it?

Though Himmler tried to bury his secrets in the ruins of the castle, some things have a way of coming to light. If you can bear the horror, you can find out what I made of it in my new book. 

 The Final Act of Daphne Devine by Syd Moore (One world Publications) Out Now

No mission is without its element of danger. But nothing could have prepared Daphne Devine for this... Back in enemy territory, Daphne and one-time lover Jack have been sent to deliver The Grimoire, a centuries-old book filled with mysticism and spells. Posing as a rare book dealer, she will hand the book to a prominent SS officer and send the Nazis into a spiral where their very beliefs are turned against them. But this is war. Behind every corner a betrayal is lurking and your enemies are often closer than you think. There are some things we cannot foresee, and these are the things that can kill us. Is this the mission where there can be no return?

Syd Moore can be found on  Facebook, Instagram @sydmoorewriter and X@sydmoore1

How the real smugglers of the Ray inspired my novel ‘The Riptide’

The Ray is real.

It is a small, low-lying islet in the Blackwater Estuary, just off Mersea Island in Essex, surrounded by salt marsh, mudflats and tidal channels. Today it is a quiet, remote place, but Ray and the surrounding country have a remarkably dark past.

This was smuggling country.

The geography explains much of it. The Essex coast is a maze of creeks, marshes, islands and channels, and the landscape changes dramatically with the tide. The Ray itself can feel almost detached from the mainland. To someone who knew the waterways, it offered innumerable opportunities to land a cargo, conceal it and move it inland. To a Revenue officer arriving from elsewhere, it must have been bewildering.

From the sixteenth century through into the nineteenth, Mersea and the surrounding villages became associated with the smuggling of tea, tobacco, spirits and other heavily taxed goods. The trade was sufficiently profitable to become part of the local economy. Fishermen, farmers, publicans and others could all benefit from contraband arriving through the creeks.

And there were some ingenious places to hide it.

One of my favourite stories concerns the Peldon Rose, the ancient inn just across the Strood from Mersea Island. The pond beside the inn was supposedly used as a hiding place for smuggled goods. According to the local tradition, barrels of spirits could be weighted down and lowered into the pond on ropes while the excise men searched the premises. There was said to be a concealed shaft or false bottom beneath the water, allowing the barrels to be hidden from anyone examining the pond. 

I first visited the Peldon Rose during lockdown – which made things tricky because it was all shut up and abandoned, a ghost of an inn. But, perhaps, that fitted with the themes of my novel, which is about how the hungry ghosts of the past can devour the present. Set in France during the French Revolution and Britain 20 years later, the currents of time are forever dragging people under.

The Peldon Rose wasn't an isolated case. Local accounts describe inns and houses throughout the area being used to store illicit goods. The people involved weren't necessarily hardened criminals. Smuggling could involve an entire network of otherwise respectable local people: someone who knew when a boat was coming in, someone who provided a cart, someone who hid a barrel in a cellar, someone who sold the goods on.

But the trade could also be brutally violent.

There is a notorious local story about a group of excise men who came to the Mersea area in search of smugglers. The smugglers, according to the story, deliberately allowed word to spread that a large landing of contraband was about to take place. The Revenue men took the bait. They gathered together and went out in a longboat, expecting to catch the smugglers in the act.

Instead, they were ambushed.

The traditional account says that the smugglers attacked the boat and murdered the excise men, cutting their throats and leaving their bodies. One version says that as many as twenty-four men were killed. The bodies were subsequently said to have been buried beneath an upturned boat in the churchyard at Virley.

Whether every detail has been embroidered by generations of retelling is less interesting than the fact that the story survived at all. It tells you something about the reputation the smugglers acquired – and about how dangerous the battle between the Revenue men and the smugglers could become.

The more I discovered, the more I realised that the landscape around the Ray was almost a ready-made thriller.

And I wasn't the first writer to notice.

Sabine Baring-Gould was rector of East Mersea from 1871 to 1881. He is probably best known today as the author of Onward, Christian Soldiers, but he was an extraordinary polymath: clergyman, folklorist, antiquarian and novelist. During his decade on Mersea he became fascinated by the stories and traditions of the place. His great fictional response was ‘Mehalah: A Story of the Salt Marshes’, published in 1880.

Like my novel, his is a dark, Gothic tale of violence, passion, revenge and smuggling, set around the real landscape of Mersea and the Ray during the period of the Napoleonic Wars. Baring-Gould knew the country intimately and used real places and local traditions in the book.

And then there was Margery Allingham.

Long before she became famous for Albert Campion, Allingham was fascinated by Mersea. Her first novel, ‘Blackkerchief Dick’, was published in 1923, when she was only nineteen, and is a historical adventure involving the smugglers of Mersea Island.

I loved discovering this literary succession. The smugglers create the stories; local people preserve them; Baring-Gould, the rector, turns them into Gothic fiction; Allingham turns them into an early crime novel; and eventually I came along and found that the landscape still contained the ingredients I needed.

I wasn't looking for a fictional landscape and then trying to make it seem real. I had the opposite problem. Reality had already done most of the work.

The Riptide by Gareth Rubin is published by Simon & Schuster (Out Now)

A dazzling, puzzle-box mystery of secrets, power and hidden truths. 1804, Isle of Ray, Essex. Lysander Rose has spent his life searching for the truth about his mother, abducted when he was just a baby. When the men who took her return for him, Lysander is forced to flee – leaving behind everything he knows. But in his escape, he uncovers a clue that draws him into the orbit of a secretive organisation known only as the Circle. As Lysander follows the trail from the Essex coast to the shadowed streets of Edinburgh, he finds himself entangled in a world of murder, blackmail and political intrigue. At its centre: an exiled king, and a conspiracy that could shape the fate of nations. And stranger still, the secrets of Lysander’s own past seem to be hidden in the pages of a lurid penny-blood chapbook – a story that may hold the key to who he really is. But as the truth of his origins begins to emerge, Lysander must decide whether he can escape the fate others have written for him.

More information about the author can be found on his website. He can also be found on Facebook and on X@GarethRubin

 

Andrew Lowe on The Vanishing Room and writing detectives whose minds work differently.

British policing has a curious blind spot. It increasingly recognises that neurodivergent people may possess cognitive strengths well suited to police work: unusual powers of concentration, persistence, attention to detail and a tendency to see things from unexpected angles. But it still has no reliable idea how many neurodivergent officers it employs.

Police Scotland says that around one in ten people has a neurodivergent condition, and now actively encourages neurodivergent applicants to discuss the adjustments they might need during recruitment. Other forces have introduced similar schemes.

Yet national workforce statistics still don't tell us how many serving officers are autistic, or have ADHD, dyslexia or other forms of neurodivergence. In some forces the information simply isn't recorded. In others it depends on officers choosing to disclose it.

That reluctance to disclose may itself tell us something. A 2025 University of Leicester-led study, published in The Police Journal, interviewed a small group of neurodivergent police officers and staff from across the UK. Some expressed worries that disclosing a formal diagnosis might restrict their careers or affect promotion. But they also repeatedly described the advantages their different ways of thinking brought to police work: noticing things colleagues missed, remembering information, making unexpected connections and approaching problems from unconventional directions. One officer said: "I make a great detective because I'm autistic."

Another went further. Police forces, they argued, were "missing a trick" by failing to seek out neurodivergent recruits deliberately. Pair a neurodivergent officer with a neurotypical colleague and, in their words, "you'll have a dream team."

Detective fiction has always been fascinated by brilliant outliers: from Holmes and Poirot to Monk, Saga Norén, Lisbeth Salander and, more recently, neurodivergent detectives such as George Cross and Patience Evans. Their minds don’t simply work better than everyone else’s. They work differently. And many of the qualities associated with that difference are peculiarly useful to a detective: the ability to bracket emotional noise in favour of logical analysis, identify patterns and inconsistencies, retain unusual amounts of detail, sustain intense focus, resist conventional assumptions and stick with a line of inquiry long after others have given up.

Another recent example, BBC TV’s Ludwig, offers a new twist on the idea: a celebrated puzzle-setter with autistic traits who assumes the identity of his missing detective twin and discovers that his puzzle-solving mind is remarkably well suited to murder investigation. We’ve come a long way from wheeling in charlatan “psychic” consultants, and it’s exciting to imagine a future in which neurodivergent traits are increasingly understood as part of a particular cognitive profile, rather than simply a liability or disability.

This idea of a policing “dream team”—a formidable pairing of a neurotypical whose exceptionalism comes from a depth of experience, and a neurodivergent who sees and perceives the world differently—is the engine that powers my Lennox & Blackwood series.

Olivia Blackwood is the grenade I’ve lobbed into the white patriarchal monoculture of the Met: she’s queer, mixed race and has ADHD. I’ve tried to show how her neurodivergent traits both enhance her investigative instincts and make aspects of the job, and life around it, more difficult. As a senior officer sarcastically suggests in the first book, The Whispering Bones: ‘Is there anyone who doesn’t have ADHD, these days?’ Blackwood quickly bats this back: ‘Around ninety-five per cent of UK adults, sir. Although a fair chunk of them will be undiagnosed, high-functioning.’

Blackwood begins the series as a mid-thirties PC, but she’s mentored up to DC level by Oswald Lennox, a DCI in his early fifties. Lennox is a precise operator with a fearsome investigative reputation and is at first reluctant to work with such a messy, unfiltered character. But their methods dovetail, and after working the harrowing case at the centre of The Whispering Bones, they find common ground in a past tragedy that runs through the series. In the second novel, The Vanishing Room, that symbiosis deepens, and so do the stakes.

At the start of The Vanishing Room, Blackwood receives a commendation in front of her policing peers, and chooses the moment to state her neurodivergence, loud and proud, saying that she’s been called many things, including ‘difficult’, ‘hard work’ and ‘mental’, but raises her award to make the point that ‘being different doesn’t have to be a weakness. It can also be a strength… Here’s to the power of diversity. To difference!’

Meanwhile, Lennox is facing his own personal crisis: memory gaps, hand tremors, uncharacteristic lapses of judgement. As the tests point towards an unthinkable prognosis, he’s forced to adapt his own methods and hide his compromises in a way that resembles the social masking behaviour adopted by some neurodivergent people to help them navigate the neurotypical world.

The characters face a new central case in each book, and there’s also that shared tragedy running underneath: Blackwood's own unsolved mystery, the disappearance of her childhood best friend Abigail, more than a decade cold. It’s the one case Lennox couldn’t solve as a DI, and as Blackwood revisits the disappearance with her new-found police powers, both are drawn back into the darkness. Where the thread leads, and what it could cost each of them to keep pulling it, is where the series is heading.

I didn’t want to present ADHD and neurological difference as colour: a tic, a running joke, a superpower, a way of making a character quirky. Blackwood's brain is the reason she's good at the job. She scatters her attention wide enough to catch connections a more linear thinker would miss; she also can't face a spreadsheet without wanting to climb out of her own skin. Both things are true at once, and neither cancels the other out.

So, this is Lennox and Blackwood: one detective whose difference is lifelong and increasingly claimed as a strength, another whose mind may be starting to fail him in ways he can't control or reverse. They're both just trying to keep functioning, and increasingly, they can only do it together.

If policing is beginning to recognise that neurological difference can be an investigative strength, then the question goes beyond how neurodivergent officers can be accommodated within an institution built around a neurological norm. It becomes a question of what policing might be missing when it expects everyone within that institution to think in broadly the same way.

Crime fiction worked this out a long time ago. The best detective in the room is often the one looking at the same evidence as everybody else and seeing something entirely different. It seems policing fact may finally be catching up with fiction.

The Vanishing Room by Andrew Lowe (Vinci Books) Out Now.

A British crime thriller in which a child’s disappearance from a locked London home leads two mismatched detectives to a predator who's spent years perfecting his method. Police procedural partnership, abduction suspense and a duel of wills with a killer who's always one step ahead. Love Builds the Strongest Cages. A young boy has disappeared from his London home. No sign of forced entry. No witnesses. No trace. Just an empty house and parents crazed with fear. When the investigation is linked to a horrific discovery beneath a derelict Victorian mansion, DCI Oswald Lennox and DC Olivia Blackwood realise they're up against a methodical predator who's been perfecting his lethal craft for years. Every hour that passes brings the missing boy closer to an unthinkable fate. Lennox is struggling with lapses in memory and focus. Blackwood’s impulsive streak threatens to derail a career that's only getting started. As the pair close in, the killer makes his boldest move yet, turning the case into a battle of wills that neither detective can afford to lose. For some monsters, death isn't enough.

The Whispering Bones and The Vanishing Room, books 1 and 2 in the Lennox & Blackwood series, are out now, published by Vinci Books. The Holloway Screamer, book 3, is out in February 2027. A prequel novella, The Rising Silence, is available in October 2026.

2026 Petrona Award Shortlist

 

Outstanding crime fiction from Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden shortlisted for the 2026 Petrona Award

Seven impressive crime novels from Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have been shortlisted for the 2026 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The shortlist is announced today, Thursday 24 September and is as follows:

Snæbjörn Arngrímsson - One True Word tr. Larissa Kyzer (Pushkin Vertigo, Iceland)

Stella Blómkvist - Murder Tide tr. Quentin Bates (Corylus Books, Iceland)

Jón Atli Jónasson - Broken tr. Quentin Bates (Corylus Books, Iceland)

Ørjan N Karlsson - Into Thin Air tr. Ian Giles (Orenda Books, Norway)

John Ajvide Lindqvist - The Writing in the Water tr. Michael Meigs (Amazon Crossing, Sweden)

Satu Rämö - The Grave in the Ice tr. Kristian London (Zaffre, Finland)

Antti Tuomainen - The Winter Job tr. David Hackston (Orenda Books, Finland)

The winning title will be announced on 22 October 2026.

The Petrona Award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia, and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.

The judges’ comments on the shortlist:

There were 28 entries for the 2026 Petrona Award from six countries (Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). This year’s shortlist sees Iceland represented with three novels, Finland with two, and Norway and Sweden with one novel each. The judges selected the shortlist from a strong pool of candidates with the seven shortlisted authors including two previous Petrona Award winners: Satu Rämö and Antti Tuomainen.

Independent publishers Corylus Books and Orenda Books both have two entries on the shortlist with Corylus’s both being translated by Quentin Bates. Amazon Crossing, Pushkin Vertigo and Zaffre have one entry apiece.

For Snæbjörn Arngrímsso, Jón Atli Jónasson and Ørjan N Karlsson, this is their first novel in English translation and for John Ajvide Lindqvist this is his first crime novel in translation.

The sub-genres of the shortlisted novels range from comedy to noir with the police procedural being particularly well represented this year.

As ever, we are extremely grateful to the translators whose expertise and skill have allowed readers to access these outstanding examples of Scandinavian crime fiction, and to the publishers who continue to champion and support translated fiction.

Further information can be found on the Petrona Award website: http://www.petronaaward.co.uk.