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.

Extract from The Butterfly House

When she realised Gerard wasn’t beside her, Violeta gave a start. Half asleep, she stretched out a hand and touched the sheets: they were still warm, so he’d not been long gone. Perhaps he’d gone to the bathroom or to get a glass of water, she thought: after all, her own mouth was parched. A glance at her watch confirmed it was still quite early, and instinctively she turned her head and looked towards the window. From the mattress that acted as a bed and rested directly on the wooden floorboards, Violeta glimpsed the grey light of day that encouraged you to take things slowly, and, turning over, she closed her eyes intending to sleep a while longer.

* * * 

The previous night he’d told her he’d only been living for four months in that down-at-heel mansion in the district of Vallcarca. The house, known by the nickname of the ‘butterfly house’, because of the brightly coloured Lepidoptera decorating the garden, was one of the many abandoned houses in the area transformed into squats by the anti-system movement in order to protest against property speculation in Barcelona. Nobody could remember who had put the butterflies there, but, as they were plastic, they’d survived the passage of time and become part and parcel of the garden. For years, the owners of the big house that, if one could believe the inscription on the façade, dated from the beginning of the twentieth century, had allowed the building to slowly crumble in the hope they’d get the necessary permissions to demolish it and replace it with a modern apartment block, a fate that, if nobody got in the way, would be the lot of most of the surrounding mansions. Some had lost their roofs and most supporting walls, and only a couple were intact enough to be habitable, even if in the most precarious conditions. With their slash-and-burn aesthetic and incendiary disenchantment, the squatters had taken apart tiled roofs, rebuilt walls, slotted in cables to siphon off electricity from street lighting, and covered the main façades with cartoons and political slogans. A dearth of green fingers had turned gardens into wild spaces, and, from the street, the tall, unpruned trees and ubiquitous weeds broadcast the state of neglect into which the buildings and land had lapsed. Rubbish piled up in gardens, and only in summer, when mosquitoes, flies and the stench became intolerable, did bouts of cleaning and excursions to waste-containers become more frequent.

The bedroom where Gerard had parked himself was cold and on the small side. It was in the attic, a long way from the main room where the squatters met to discuss politics, listen to music, drink beer and smoke joints. Like most of them, he too had screwed a chain on the door to make sure that one of the strangers continually going in and out of the squat didn’t rummage through his belongings. Not that he owned anything of value, apart from his laptop that he always carried with him, as a precaution, but everyone knew that now and then items of clothing went missing, as did packets of cigarettes and condoms.

You could see the mountain of Tibidabo from his bedroom window, and in the foreground, the rubble wastelands the large plots had become after the grand houses had been demolished. These wastelands ran down to the stanchions of Vallcarca bridge, some two hundred metres from the butterfly house, and demonstrated how much speculation and a quick-buck culture had changed the look of the neighbourhood. Now and then the Mossos were ordered to clear out one of the buildings and the heavy brigade descended and did its worst. In solidarity with their evicted comrades or under attack from the anti-riot police, the squatters then created an uproar that ended in street-fighting in the city centre, with baton charges, arrests, improvised barricades, burning containers and the windows of banks and shops smashed to smithereens.

Unlike Violeta, Gerard had yet to be arrested by the Mossos. Whenever there was a shit-show, Gerard tried to scarper and when that wasn’t possible, he made sure he wasn’t in the front line so as not to draw attention to himself.

‘In fact, I only came to live in this house because I needed a free pad where I could study and not have my father on my back all the time,’ he’d confessed to Violeta.

Gerard had only one year to go before he received a joint degree in maths and physics, and, with his first-class grades, he was convinced it would be easy for him to get a grant to enrol for a doctorate at Edinburgh University, in the very same department where Professor Peter Higgs had discovered the elementary particle that bore his name. In the course of his degree, Gerard had specialised in the Higgs boson and had the opportunity to be part of one of the teams experimenting with the particle collider on the Universitat Autónoma campus, and, as he told Violeta, he had high hopes of working one day with the British physicist’s students on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

‘So you’ll be going to Scotland next year?’ asked Violeta, hardly delighted by the prospect.

‘I hope so. But Edinburgh isn’t that far…’ added Gerard with a big smile.

While she killed time and made up her mind whether to stay a bit longer in the house or hit the road, Violeta found a packet of cigarettes and lit up. She’d not eaten anything and the smoke and nicotine made her stomach feel queasy, so she stubbed it out after a couple of puffs. She’d slept very little, smoked a lot and drunk over the odds, and felt rather hung over. Wondering whether it might do her good to drink something hot before leaving, she headed to the kitchen intending to brew up some tea.

Violeta was scouring the cupboards looking for an infusion to help deal with her queasy guts when she was startled by shouts from the garden. A voice was shouting for help. She rushed to the front door, and when she opened it she was shocked to see it was Gerard who was calling.

‘There’s a dead woman in the garden,’ she heard him mumble. ‘I think she’s been murdered.’

The Butterfly House by Teresa Solana (Corylus Books)

No money, no future - a motive for murder? The economic crisis has hit Barcelona hard, and a personal crisis might be about to hit Deputy Inspector Norma Forrester's family. When a body is found in the grounds of a former grand villa,now a student squat, Norma finds the case uncomfortably close to home. The downturn has turned the city into a breeding ground for crime, or is the motive more personal? Unable to stay away, although this case may represent a conflict of interest, Norma can't even count on the support of her forensic pathologist husband Octavi, who has more than enough to cope with following a major incident at the city's Prat Airport. When a face from his past appears, he and Norma are faced with choices and conflicts - just as her focus should be on finding the killer.

Coastal Crime 2027

 Crime writer starts new chapter as Coastal Crime announces 2027 date

Crime author Alex Stone publishes her latest thriller, The Jealous Girl, and launches a major new festival in the South: Coastal Crime.

Crime writer Alex Stone is preparing for a major new chapter this autumn - the publication of her latest psychological thriller, The Jealous Girl, and the launch of a new crime fiction festival.

Coastal Crime – The South's Crime Writing Festival takes place on Saturday 6 March 2027 at the Leonardo Royal Hotel Southampton Grand Harbour, bringing some of the biggest names in crime fiction together with emerging authors, aspiring writers, and readers for a day dedicated to the genre by the sea.

Festival founder Alex Stone was awarded a Katie Fforde Bursary in 2019 and published her debut thriller The Perfect Daughter with Boldwood Books in 2021. Her new Dorset-set psychological thriller, The Jealous Girl, is published by Boldwood Books on 10 September.

Alex Stone said: “It feels particularly appropriate that, just as The Jealous Girl is about to reach readers, Coastal Crime is beginning its first chapter.'

“Writing can often be a solitary profession, which is one of the reasons I'm so passionate about bringing writers and readers together. Coastal Crime is about celebrating the authors people already love, helping readers discover brilliant new voices, and creating a community where anyone with a passion for crime fiction feels welcome.”

The inaugural Coastal Crime programme is packed with panels exploring topics from reinventing the whodunnit, coastal noir, and adapting novels for screen.

Featured authors whose books have been adapted for screen include Sarah Pinborough, with the Netflix smash, Behind Her Eyes, Luke Jenning, whose books inspired the global sensation Killing Eve, TM Logan, whose The Holiday was adapted by Ch5 starring Jill Halfpenny, and New York Times bestselling screenwriter and novelist M J Arlidge, whose book was adapted for ITV’s Innocent.

Other bestselling authors include the award-winning Vaseem Khan, who was commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate as an official author of the James Bond spin offs, featuring Q.

Journalist turned author Jackie Kabler also stars. Jackie worked as a news correspondent for the BBC, ITV and GMTV before writing bestsellers including The Perfect Couple and The Happy Family, selling over a million copies.

Sarah Pearse, Heidi Perks, Antony Johnston and Ava Glass also feature in a programme of talks, panels and opportunities for readers to meet new, emerging authors.

Alex said: “We’re creating a festival that celebrates bestselling names while championing new voices.”

Alex also runs an Author Events Academy, which has informed Coastal Crime’s dedicated Industry Hub, which will also run alongside the main festival.

The hub is aimed at aspiring and established writers, with sessions on breaking into the genre, understanding publishing routes, building visibility, mastering research, and pitching to agents, with expert contributors, including UK NetGalley Director Stuart Evers, on building a sustainable and visible writing career.

The hub also features forensic scientist Jo Millington, whose team has advised on major TV productions including Silent Witness, and Graham Bartlett, a former senior police officer turned bestselling author.

Writers will gain direct industry perspective from Curtis Brown Creative, sharing what agents are really looking for and how to approach submissions with confidence, alongside additional publishing professionals and specialists offering guidance across craft, research and career development.

A limited number of one-to-one appointments with agents and editors are now available to book.

Alex said: “Developing new, aspiring and emerging writers is something of a passion of mine. I’ve been through the process of dreaming of being a writer to published author. My Author Events Academy provides online workshops and development opportunities for writers, so that expertise and learning have really helped shape what we feel is an inspirational and practical day at Coastal Crime.”

The day concludes with a relaxed drinks reception, to meet authors and fellow crime fans.

Alex’s latest book The Jealous Girl explores toxic relationships, obsession and revenge. The novel follows Kirsty, whose obsession with the woman who has replaced her in her former boyfriend's life draws her into a web of family secrets, lies and ultimately something much darker. 

Dorset's dramatic coastline has long provided inspiration and settings for Alex's psychological thrillers, making the creation of a major crime writing festival on the South Coast a natural progression for the author.

Coastal Crime takes place on Saturday 6 March 2027 at the Leonardo Royal Hotel Southampton Grand Harbour. Early Bird tickets with 25% off are available until 31 October.

For tickets and further information please visit the website.

Death and Detection: Exploring Golden Age Crime Fiction,

Every Spring Christ Church hosts a Special Interest Event, where a group of specialists discuss the chosen topic in a series of lectures during the four-day event. Accommodation is provided in buildings of architectural and historical interest which reflect the different centuries since the college's foundation. All meals are included and are prepared under the direction of the college's Executive Head Chef and are served in the magnificent Tudor Hall. In 2027 they will be hosting 'Death and Detection: Exploring Golden Age Crime Fiction' taking place from the 8/4/27. 

 

Ticket information can be found here.

McIlvanney Prize Shortllist announced

 

BLOODY SCOTLAND REVEALS THE FINALISTS FOR 

THE McILVANNEY PRIZE 2026 

sponsored by the Glencairn Glass

Winner to be presented at 5pm on Friday 18 September 2026

This year the McIlvanney Prize is being judged by well-known broadcasters, Nicola Meighan and Sally Magnusson and crime reviewer, Gordon McGhie. Today they reveal the books they have selected as finalists and why:

Tariq Ashkanani - The Hollow Boys (Viper)

‘A powerful evocation of small town America and a deftly handled plot with an impossibly chilling mystery at its heart.’

Gavin Bell - 138 Main Street (S&S)

‘A genuinely unputdownable serial killer novel. We loved the originality and the sheer scale (both geographical and imaginative) of this thriller.’

Frances Crawford - A Bad, Bad Place (Transworld)

‘A bold, vital and original voice in Scottish crime writing. Full of wit and humanity, the characters stay with you long after you put the novel down.’

Philip Miller - The Diary of Lies (Polygon)

‘Absolutely beautiful prose evoking the Fife Coast and Edinburgh under snow. A truly exquisite sense of pace and a strong female lead character.’

Zoë Rankin - The Vanishing Place (Viper)

‘A gripping story about a forgotten family, alone and vulnerable in the New Zealand wilderness. We loved the strong characterisation in this compelling debut.’

Tariq Ashkanani was the winner of the McIlvanney Prize 2025 and also won the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize in 2022. He is one of the most established names on the list, which includes two debut authors – Frances Crawford and Zoë Rankin – who are also shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize, the latest book by Gavin Bell (who has previously written as Mason Cross and Alex Knight) and Philip Miller who appears on the McIlvanney shortlist for the first time. 

It’s also a triumph for indie publishers with Viper (Profile) appearing twice and Polygon (Birlinn) ensuring that indies dominate the list of finalists. 

Kirsty Nicholson, Head of Marketing at awards sponsor Glencairn Crystal, said:

“We’re thrilled to once again be part of the McIlvanney Prize and to celebrate the incredible talent at the heart of Scotland’s crime-writing community. This year’s finalists have delivered stories that intrigue, thrill and captivate, showcasing the imagination and originality that make this crime fiction prize so special. We’ll be raising a Glencairn Glass to every finalist as we look forward to discovering who takes home this year’s prize. Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors and the best of luck!”

The presentation of both prizes will take place in the Church of the Holy Rude at 5pm on Friday 18 September before a grand procession led by the two winners and guest programmer Denise Mina to her event with Lee Child at The Albert Halls.