Solve My Crime: the art of interactive crime fiction and the story behind Crime Seen

On August 21, 2018, writer Manuel Bartual and I managed to bring more than 60 people together in a park to stare at a lamppost. Absolutely nothing happened in the park. There was nothing unusual about the lamppost either. It was all part of a mystery thread on Twitter in which a seemingly real hacker was following clues she had found on a mysterious mobile phone. One of those clues consisted of some coordinates in a park. The protagonist asked Twitter users for help: she needed someone to go there that night, photograph one of the lampposts, and send her the picture so she could continue her investigation. The readers, who were following the story with fascination, did not hesitate to accept the invitation to become part of the investigation, and flocked to the darkened park. 

Manuel and I were exploring the possibilities of interactivity in fiction. Although the thread was full of moments in which we asked users to help us solve puzzles, what happened in the park that night was undoubtedly the most fascinating. For the first time, we had taken interactivity off the screen and brought it into the physical world. Readers could literally step into the setting of the story and experience the mystery for themselves. We had anticipated that perhaps one or two people might show up. More than fifty did. 

At the time, fictional stories were beginning to emerge on Twitter that played with the uncertainty of whether what they told was real or invented. Twitter had always been associated with information and opinion rather than fiction, so developing a suspense story through a seemingly real account felt unexpected and intriguing. Interactive fiction on social media was booming, and it even had a name: Twitterature. In June 2018, I published a thread that went viral, and won first prize at Feria del Hilo, a competition organized by Twitter itself. A few months later, Manuel and I joined forces to create a new thread – the mystery thread mentioned at the beginning of this article.

When the pandemic arrived and lockdown began, I felt an overwhelming urge to create something new on social media. I wanted to use that period of widespread boredom to offer audiences an entertaining and different experience. But I did not want to repeat the formula of fictional stories that succeeded by blurring the line between reality and fiction.

I had learned one important lesson from those experiences: people enjoyed interacting with crime stories and feeling that they were part of an investigation. So I asked myself a question: what if I explicitly turned the whole thing into a game? No ambiguity, no deception. Instead of doctored photographs pretending to be real, I would use illustrations that made it clear from the outset that we were playing a game. It would be like taking part in a board game - but with the entire Internet. 

With that idea in mind, I contacted illustrator Javi de Castro and asked him to draw a crime scene containing a series of specific elements. Those elements told a story, but not in a linear way. To reconstruct it, readers had to observe, connect details, formulate hypotheses, and draw their own conclusions. In short, they had to become detectives. 

The game was an overwhelming success: it accumulated millions of views and was featured by numerous media outlets across the country. Demand for new cases was so great that I decided to put everything else aside and spend lockdown creating more crime scenes.  

The first volume of Crímenes ilustrados was published in May 2021. Since then, the project has continued to grow, now comprising three volumes, and expanded into new territories, with editions published in 14 languages. This November, it will be published by Bloomsbury as Crime Seen! 

In a world where artificial intelligence is gaining ground and social media occupies an ever-growing part of our lives, I believe this kind of interactive fiction is more relevant than ever. At a time when our consumption of content is becoming increasingly fast, passive, and automated, these stories demand precisely the opposite: they ask us to observe, think, connect clues, formulate hypotheses, and make decisions. Above all, they turn fiction into a shared experience, capable of creating communities of readers who play, debate, and solve mysteries together. Perhaps the future of fiction is not only about telling new stories, but also about finding new ways to invite readers to step inside them.

Crime Seen by Modesto Garcia (Bloomsbury Publishing) Out Now

Investigate the crimes in these 12 pictures to find the killers. Why is a broken bottle on the floor? What did the victim's last text message say? What has been thrown in the bin? For each crime, choose what to inspect, then turn to the correct page to scrutinise the evidence. Examine crimes of passion, million-dollar inheritance disputes, hidden identities and deadly secrets using all the tools at your disposal – not forgetting the internet and your powers of deductive reasoning. If you reach a dead end, using a mirror will reveal additional clues. Use them wisely… Investigate the clues in any order. Complete with solutions and reconstructions. Use a mirror to reveal extra clues. Remember, every Sherlock needs their Watson – but whether you choose to team up with others or tackle these crime scenes alone, only true detective spirit will reveal the killers. Perfect for fans of puzzle books such as Murdle and Murdoku, escape rooms, crime fiction and true crime podcasts. Will you take on the challenge?

OLD KING LEIR

‘A play!’ Lord North’s eyes lit up. ‘How capital!’ Then his eyes narrowed, and he stood back considering us. ‘A Tudor play, it seems from the look of you.’

‘You are quite right on that score, sir,’ I said.

‘Not a bloody tale of revenge, I imagine, so …’ He paused. ‘A pleasant comedy?

The Ado about Nothing?’

 

We shook our heads.

‘Then the Dream at Midsummer?’

‘No, sir,’ Rosamund blushed prettily. ‘It is King Lear we are attempting.’

‘King Lear?’ Lord North looked first astonished and then a shade disappointed (as everyone must, I think, at the prospect of enduring such an exercise in extended gloom).

When King Lear popped up unexpectedly in the research for my new novel The Bells of Fortune, like Lord North I did rather wish it had been anyone else instead.

Shakespeare’s play certainly is an exercise in extended gloom: a marathon of existential despair not to mention psychological and physical torture. I had suffered through a four or five hour staging of the play at the RSC in my twenties, which I had watched from the hard seats in the gods being then a penniless student. I was pretty scarred by that experience and left with an enduringly jaundiced view of the whole thing.

Though I later became an English lecturer, I never taught a Shakespeare course, my own expertise being eighteenth-century political writing. But I did retain a vague idea that Shakespeare’s plays had been meddled with over the centuries. In particular, I had the idea that the eighteenth-century had especially disliked the play (Samuel Johnson loathed it) and, in the view of scholars, had destroyed Shakespeare’s work of genius by giving it a happy ending.

This was pretty much all I knew about Lear when I embarked on research for my latest novel starring the incorrigible Susan Bell, who first appeared in The Bells of Westminster in 2024.

I knew that her next destination was to be her father’s family seat of Fortune Hall in Leicestershire. I therefore now needed to discover a story for her there, which might rival the amazing true tale of the 1774 opening of Edward Longshanks’ tomb in Westminster Abbey, which had formed the basis of the previous book.

The Society of Antiquaries in London had been responsible for that tomb-opening, so it seemed natural to turn to their Leicestershire equivalents in search of another true story which might be the occasion for a new adventure. Imagine my surprise when these remarkable observations turned up in the midst of a discussion of the city of Leicester.

Among other traditions, it is said that King Leir built a vault under the river, which he dedicated to Janus, under the which his daughter Cordelia caused him to be buried.

King Leir? Cordelia? Was this King Lear? But, hang on, Cordelia dies in his arms at the end of Shakespeare’s play. What in the world is she doing burying him whom, moreover, another antiquary ‘supposes to have been the founder of this place and to have given the name to it.’

Leicester named after King Lear? I marvelled again. What on earth is going on?

Remembering those eighteenth-century meddlers, I went back to them and now learned that the play they usually staged in preference to Shakespeare’s original, was a mash up of Shakespeare’s text with an earlier play I’d never heard of.

This earlier play was based on Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, which was in turn based on the work of an old friend of my characters, the twelfth-century ‘historian’ Geoffrey of Monmouth, whom Lindley Bell calls that old story spinner with a fevered brain. 

So, King Lear was not Shakespeare’s original creation, then, but an ancient king of Britain with a history of his own! I now understood that the eighteenth-century objectors hadn’t been meddling for no reason but instead had chosen to return to the original myth.

More reading soon revealed that in the story told by Holinshed and Geoffrey of Monmouth, there is indeed a happy ending. Cordelia rallies the troops of France to aid her father when he is abused by Goneril and Regan. She and her husband lead the army back to Britain and defeat the evil sisters. Lear is restored to his throne, and lives out a happy old age before Cordelia lovingly buries him in his magnificent, lost tomb under the river Soar in Leicestershire.

Yes, I had first regretted that it was King Lear I had to deal with, and not some chirpier Shakespearian comedy or other. But not anymore. Some of the deeper themes of the play are echoed in the novel – if in a much more light-hearted way. And how much funnier it is, after all, to have the frivolous Susan and Lindley Bell run up against a work of such enduring and gruelling genius.

 

The Bells of Fortune by Leonora Nattrass (Profile Books) Out Now

The hunt for an ancient king could prove deadly... Leicestershire, 1774. Following a minor royal scandal, Susan Bell's father has lost his post as Dean of Westminster, and the two find themselves exiled to the family's country seat, Fortune Hall. Susan fills her days attempting to prevent her fiancé Lindley from being married off to a richer bride, while her father takes on the tutorship of Francis North, son of the Prime Minister. When a visiting surveyor mysteriously disappears near a fast-flowing river, the man is presumed to have drowned. Susan alone is not convinced by this explanation, or by that of eccentric visiting librarian Mr Quintrel, who declares the surveyor likely lost in the tunnels that form the tomb of the mythical King Lear. But when the young Francis North also disappears, Susan knows that her family's reputation is at stake and she must investigate. What did the surveyor stumble upon that someone would possibly kill to hide? And what darker secrets are waiting to be revealed

More information about the author can be found on her website.

She can be found on X @LeonoraNattrass

Why do we love a murder mystery? by Jim Ross

©Louise Ross

Earlier this year, I finished writing my first novel, Hawk’s Justice (publishing with Simon & Schuster on 5th November 2026). New writers are usually given the same advice: write what you know. I practised as a barrister in the courts of England and Wales for twenty years, so the legal world was an obvious choice for my setting. I know legal London well, especially the area around the Royal Courts of Justice and the Temple.

Harder to draw from my own experience was the plot. My legal career was serious, even boring. I practised in banking and finance law rather than crime, so I didn’t have much of a ready stock of past cases or real-life courtroom dramas to draw from. Instead, I turned to the stories I enjoyed throughout my childhood: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple. Murder mysteries were my favourite, but I realised that forensic science had moved on a fair bit from the times in which those period pieces were set. Was it still realistic to write a whodunnit or locked room mystery in the modern world of DNA and computer science without stretching the reader’s credulity beyond breaking point?

It was whilst researching modern crime investigation techniques that I discovered something that genuinely surprised me: we are currently living in what is probably the safest period in human history. The homicide rate recorded by police in England and Wales last year was the lowest in decades. North of the border, homicides have fallen to the lowest level since modern records began. Police Scotland was established as the single national force in 2013 and claims to have solved every murder they have investigated since that time. That’s a 100% clear-up rate! This figure seems to be based on the fact that Police Scotland believe they have correctly identified the person responsible for every murder investigated during their history, not that they have sucessfully prosecuted every murderer, but it is still a remarkable statistic. As a British observer, the higher levels of lethal violence in the US have always been concerning to me – but even in America, the homicide rate is currently the lowest since national estimates began.

Why are these figures so surprising? Perhaps it’s because they’re counterintuitive to anyone who consumes a modern diet of news and social media. The traditional newsroom maxim ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ will probably never die. From an evolutionary perspective, we’re instinctively predisposed to focus our attention on anything that could constitute a threat. That’s why we can’t help but rubberneck when we pass road traffic accidents. It’s also why finely-tuned online algorithms will keep filling our feeds with crime stories even if the true story of our age is that serious crime has never been lower.

In some ways, the absence of serious crime in our everyday lives could even be seen as giving rise to a perverse appetite for such content – hence the explosion in popularity of the ‘true crime’ genre in podcasts and online streaming platforms in recent years.

Where does all this leave the murder mystery novel? The genre’s traditional inciting incident – the discovery of an unexplained dead body – is still capable of capturing the modern reader’s attention. But attention spans are shorter than they used to be. The key challenge for today’s writer is to keep the reader engaged notwithstanding the temptations of social media and online streaming platforms. That’s where the mystery part comes in. We can’t compete with the tragedies of real life, which will always be more salient and diverting by reason of the fact that they are real. However, novelists certainly can compete when it comes to the twists and turns of a good mystery, especially when unexplained deaths are becoming less common in the real world.

I’ve always found that the ‘whodunnit’ aspect of a murder mystery is the most engaging of all – stories where the reader can travel along with the detective and try to solve the mystery at the same time. That’s what I did with Hawk’s Justice – a man is found dead in the Royal Courts of Justice in mysterious circumstances, and the reader is presented with a series of plausible suspects and clues that will enable them to try to solve the murder themselves whilst watching the protagonist navigate a series of exciting pitfalls along the way.

There is something important missing from the above analysis of a murder mystery. Of course, the ‘murder’ attracts the reader’s initial attention, and the ‘mystery’ should keep them engaged. But the true appeal of crime fiction isn’t the crime as such – it’s the restoration of order. The initial crime temporarily rips a hole in the fabric of a community, and it’s the detective’s job to stitch things back together by finding the murderer and bringing them to justice.

The concept of ‘justice’ being at stake can feel nebulous in the abstract, but in the specific context of a murder mystery it becomes more concrete. In Hawk’s Justice, the victim is a High Court judge, with the result that the justice system itself is under threat throughout the book. In this way, I’ve tried to raise the stakes to the highest possible level, whilst wrapping the murder mystery in a legal thriller to keep the reader turning the pages along the way.

The modern world feels increasingly chaotic and uncertain. Few people would say that there is much justice in the world of politics or international affairs. But a good murder mystery novel can provide a sense of justice being done, the feeling of a satisfying resolution. That is something a bottomless online feed will never provide.

Hawk’s Justice by Jim Ross (Simon & Schuster) Published 5^th November 2026

A killer in the courts. When High Court judge William Ryland is found dead inside the Royal Courts of Justice, it seems like a tragic accident. But young, high-flying lawyer Tom Hawk suspects there's more to his death than meets the eye. When he takes over Ryland’s final case – a battle between two Russian billionaires – he’s thrust into a murky world of deception, where nothing is quite as it seems... An international conspiracy. Inside the courts, the body count begins to rise. And as evidence disappears, Hawk finds himself wrapped up in a much darker game: one that goes to the very heart of the justice system. A man who breaks the rules. When tensions arise between Hawk and the beautiful but uncompromising Detective Inspector Kate Black, he realises that he’ll have to take the law into his own hands – but at what cost? Murder and intrigue combine in this fast-paced adventure, set against the iconic landscape of legal London

 More information about Jim Ross and his books can be found on his website. He can also be found on Facebook and on Instagram @jimrossauthor.

Forthcoming Books from Canongate

January 2027

The Cut Up is by Louise Welsh. It's hard to be good when living is expensive. And times are tough on the streets these days. Luckily for Rilke at Bowery Auctions the demand for no-questions-asked cash is at an all-time high, and business is booming. When Rilke hears his old acquaintance Les is fresh out of prison, his inclination is to stay well out of his way. Letting sleeping dogs lie is one thing - but when one of Bowery's customers winds up dead on their tarmac, Rilke needs a bit of help from his friends to tidy things up. If only his friends didn't have such a habit of making things worse.

May 2027

On the Greek island of Vidos the past lingers like salt in the air. The inhabitants - former members of MI6 - are sent here to be forgotten. Exiled. Either too damaged or too compromised to be allowed to live freely. For years, residents make the best of their fate - old enemies reconcile, long-lost friends swim together in the warm sea and estranged lovers share a bed once more. But secrets bind tightly. And when one of their own washes up dead, alliances fracture and a tide of suspicion begins to rise. A vivid reimagining of a real, hidden slice of the British Intelligence Service's history, A Stranger in Corfu is by Alex Preston and is an exquisitely tense and masterfully spun novel about shadowy morality, unravelled secrets and the futility of trying to outrun the past.

June 2027

Buenos Aires. 2015. The President said it was suicide. 400,000 protestors said it was murder. When Alberto Nisman died, all of the facts – his fingerprints on the .22 pistol, the gunshot wound, the locked door – seemed to point to suicide. But Nisman was a federal prosecutor, and just one day away from revealing the findings of a decades-long corruption investigation. Some of the most power- ful people in Argentina, all the way to the President herself, had good reason to silence him . . . This is the true story of a single death that became a national crisis. It led to 400,000 people marching in silent protest through Buenos Aries (many with ‘Todos Somos Nisman’ – ‘We Are Nisman’ – placards), to an election thrown into uncertainty, and to a new civil rights movement. In We Are Nisman, award-winning crime writer Denise Mina unpicks the facts of an extraordinary case with a mystery at its heart – was Alberto Nisman murdered? We Are Nisman: A True Crime Story is by Denise Mina.

The Rarest of Rare: The Noida Killings is by Abir Mukherjee. In the world’s biggest democracy no one cares about the murderers living in the shadows . . . Noida in Mumbai is known as the call centre capital of the world. Billions of rupees turned over every day. But it’s right next to one of India’s biggest slums. When a young girl goes missing, presumed dead, no one lifts a finger. Slum kids disappear every day in India. But when it seems like it might be more than one girl missing, the police are shamed into action. Suspicion falls on the houses that fall along this faultline between rich and poor. But all but the evidence seems to have vanished . . . This nail-biting cold case throws up questions of power, shame and corruption in contemporary India, and how the caste system impacts justice in the world’s biggest democracy. 

Trusted physician. Politician. Hero. Mass murderer. In Vichy France many would give anything to flee the Nazi occupation, the majority of them Jews. The good Dr Marcel Petiot offered a ticket out. But Petiot was many things at once. Trusted physician. Politician. Hero. Mass murderer. And when the door was broken in on Petiot’s house in early 1944, a scene confronted police that would haunt the French nation to this day. A jumbled heap of rotting body parts, a grave pit, a pile of hair, a furnace irrevocably tainted by mass murder and a mysterious triangular room equipped to facilitate both torture and voyeurism. In this staggering true crime exploration of the confounding case of Marcel Petiot, Costa Award- winning author A.L. Kennedy paints a picture of a France haunted by its complicity in its own occupation and the monstrosity hiding in plain sight. Relentless:The True Untrue Story is by A L Kennedy.

A secret cannot stay locked away forever. Bodkin Bell, orphan, pickpocket and survivor, doesn’t know where she came from, but she knows she’s different. Gaslights flare as she walks past. Cutlery spins. Shocks fly from her fingertips. For years, she was ‘Little Spark’, the star of an electrifying travelling act – until it went too far and she ended up in a London gaol. Now she’s been offered a way out. A chance to serve at Point Mote, a vast, desolate house marooned on the misty Kent marshes. There, she will assist a reclusive family of cunning inventors in the creation of automata: miraculous, lifelike machines for which gentlemen collectors will pay handsomely. But this house of wonders hides mysteries too. As Bodkin starts to question why she is really there, she unearths secrets that have been buried bone-deep for years – and a truth beyond all imagining. One that was never meant to be found. Little Spark is by Jess Kidd

 

Forthcoming Books from Atlantic Books (Incl Corvus Books and Atlantic Grove UK)

January 2027

Behind closed doors. Deadley secets lie. When Issy marries her school crush Sean, it seems she has everything: the perfect new house on Kill Lane, the perfect husband. But the day they return from their honeymoon, tragedy strikes. Her best friend Ciara calls to the house to bring their dog back, but instead of holiday happiness and souvenirs, she discovers Sean and Issy's bodies. Everything points to a murder suicide. But Ciara and Elaina have been best friends with Issy since school, and they know her too well to believe that's what really happened... Kill Lane is by Sam Blake.

For Whom the Spell Tolls is by Alice Bell. Tucked away in a genteel, rural hamlet, a coven of witches is the last thing you'd expect to find. But these modern-day witches are more into tarot and social media than toil and trouble - except for their ongoing feud with a prominent historian who claims the witch trials were a hoax. When the historian turns up dead and the witches become the prime suspects, medium-cum-detective Claire wants to solve the case and clear their names. In this small village, secrets and spirits abound. Can Claire separate the black magic from white lies?

The serial killer he couldn't catch is dead. The last victim isn't. DI Marshall must find her before it's too late. Two years ago DI Rob Marshall almost caught Callum Davidson, the serial killer who'd abducted and killed a string of women across London, before dumping their bodies in the streets. Now, Callum Davidson has turned up at the bottom of a viaduct in Melrose. Dead. And Marshall is dragged back home to the Scottish Borders - and a tragedy he's avoided for twenty years. Davidson is dead, but the last woman he abducted hasn't been found . . . She might still be alive somewhere, but she's running out of time. Marshall was too late to save the last victim. He has to save this one - for both of them. How can you save the final victim when the murderer is dead, taking his secrets to the grave? The Turning of Our Bones is by Ed James

February 2027

Raven's River is by S W Perry. Where'er she be seen, Death will surely follow... London, 1800. Born in the gutter, raised on the banks of the greatest waterway in the world, Sergeant Jack Raven is an officer in the newly formed Thames River Police. And like any good policeman he doesn't believe in ghosts. But when labourers building the city's great new docks unearth a child's bones and an ancient curse, men start dying. Raven must solve the case before more lives – and fortunes - are lost. His only allies are the unlikely kind: bare-knuckle fighters and a network of scientifically-minded young women, led by the aristocratic, spirited but married Lady Callista Granville - whose interest in Raven is a secret that could ruin them both.

Crooks make the best detectives. They know how the guilty think and where the guilty hide. Xavier Rule - Ecks to his friends - didn't come to California searching for salvation. A thief and a killer on the run from the law, he expected to disappear. But under the influence of the unusual church he's begun attending, Ecks has started to forgive himself and others for past misdeeds. Then Benol Richards walks through the door. Twenty-three years ago, she helped her lover kidnap three baby boys and sold them on the black market - she has carried the guilt with her ever since. Now she wants to know what became of the children, and Ecks is given the job of finding out. But if he is to pick up this trail and follow where it leads, he will have to fight his old, lethal instincts - and know when justice demands he give in to them. Parishioner is by Walter Mosley.

March 2027

A Frightfully Fiendish Murder is by Lucy Andrew. An utterly charming mystery set in Bath's high society with Harriet Smith reprising her role as sleuth extraordinaire, perfect for anyone who loved The Other Bennet Sister. A jewel thief, a mysterious dagger, a faded lithograph . . . it's the perfect case for Miss Harriet. Harriet Smith is in Bath to uncover a thief in the Upper Assembly Rooms, who's been snatching priceless jewels and scaring off the wealthy clientele. Harriet flirts with John and Isabella Thorpe but soon unearths more than she bargained for... At a soirée at the Assembly Rooms, she tracks the thief - only to find his lifeless corpse stuffed into an empty sedan chair, with a stage-prop dagger and the image of a famous actor tucked into his pocket. Harriet has a case to crack. And there's no time to waste...

April 2027

When historian Rose McHugh is left a mysterious bequest after the death of the reclusive heiress of Thornwood Park, she's excited to visit the estate. But when Rose realises she may have found evidence of women going missing, she delves deeper. During World War II, the nearby Robertson Hotel housed trainees of the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force, who often attended lavish parties thrown by Thornwood's wealthy owners. Unearthing a decades-old mystery is a challenge, particularly when it may lead to the unmasking of a serial killer. And it appears that someone in the misty Southern Highlands will do anything to keep the killer's identity hidden... Murder at Thornwood Park is by Joan Sauers.

May 2027

Where The Bodies Lie is by Ed James. A copycat killer is on the loose in this taut cat-and-mouse thriller featuring former criminal-profiler-turned-detective, Rob Marshall. Three missing victims never found. A fresh murder. A race against time to catch a killer . . . Ten years ago DI Rob Marshall profiled a serial killer the press dubbed the 'Shadow Man', who murdered six young athletes before burying their bodies in shallow woodland graves. They caught the killer, but the bodies of his last three victims were never found. Now the Shadow Man is willing to reveal their final resting place. But when Marshall finds the body, it isn't ten years old - it's a fresh murder. There's a copycat killer on the loose . . .

Forthcoming Books from Head of Zeus

 January 2027

Fever Island is by Martin Edwards. A cursed island. A macabre party. An impossible crime. Five years after film star Godiva Lee died under suspicious circumstances, Boris Unthank gathers everyone connected to her death for a ‘party’ on the isolated Fever Island. A reluctant Rachel Savernake is invited for one reason: Unthank believes she can solve the impossible crime. She only agrees to attend for another reason, however: he knows something that could ruin her. As storms rage and the island is cut off from the outside world, old scandals resurface as hidden identities are revealed.  With suspicion running rife, Rachel must unravel the deadly mystery or risk exposing an even greater secret: who she truly is...

Archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Special Agent Corrie Swanson team up against supernatural foes. On a construction site in the foothills of Santa Fe, New Mexico, workers have uncovered a row of ancient skeletons buried upside down. It is revealed that this was the work of the Spanish Inquisition, who in 1676 condemned six women as witches and executed them, burying them head downwards to speed their way to hell.  Nora Kelly soon makes a further shocking discovery – a fresh inverted burial in the same place… and only two months old. As more murders and bizarre burials start mounting up, Nora and FBI Special Agent Corrie Swanson find themselves in pursuit of a mass killer who possesses a terrifying, ancient power defying human understanding. Dead Man's Journey is by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child.

February 2027

You Reap is by Michael Wendroff. Kidnappings are terrifying a small town.There is no pattern: the missing children and their families appear to have nothing in common and police are baffled. As the number of victims grows, so does the fear that time is running out. With the police department stretched to its limits, bitter rivals Jill Jarred and Jack Ludlum are drawn into the investigation. For Jill, the case hits close to home, reopening the wounds of a family tragedy she’s never escaped. Searching for the children is only the beginning. The kidnapper has a deeper purpose than anyone realised and the closer Jill and Jack get to the truth, the more dangerous the hunt becomes.

Joe Pickett is back in the saddle as he investigates a case of missing children and a community full of secrets. After the attack that nearly took his life, Joe Pickett is back at work, despite lingering issues from the gunshot wounds he sustained.  Joe has been tasked with helping an FBI task force search for two missing children in western Wyoming's Star Valley. The siblings went missing while their wealthy father was out hunting and their socialite mother was staying in the local town. Star Valley is an insular community run by religious elders who keep inserting themselves into the case. With a whole cast of potential suspects but no obvious motive, Joe must use all his expertise to find the children before it's too late. Meanwhile, in Joe's absence, his daughter Sheridan investigates a poaching case that proves to be far more sinister than she imagined. The Missing is by C J Box.

March 2027

Shadow Game is by Nick Petrie. When military veteran Peter Ash steps in to save a fellow hiker on the Appalachian Trail, he ends up accused of murder and faces a fight for his life and his freedom. In the mountains of Tennessee, Marine Corps veteran Peter Ash is hiking the 2200-mile Appalachian Trail when he meets a mysterious older hiker being threatened by two men. Peter intervenes, but soon finds himself at the wrong end of the older man's pistol. Before the day is out, Peter will be wanted for murder, for he has unwittingly ended up in a decades-old story of espionage, betrayal, and homicide.  Along with his friend Lewis and a pair of retired spies, Peter must dodge killers and solve this mystery himself or spend the rest of his life in prison.  If he survives the day...

April 2027

Marcus Ulpius Bellator survived the brutality of war on the furthest frontiers of the Roman Empire. Now living in the Eternal City itself, things haven't worked out the way he’d envisaged. Civilian life is proving difficult and his drinking and gambling are taking a toll on his marriage to Tillia. Everything changes the night his home goes up in flames, when Bellator arrives to find that Tillia, trapped inside, has died in the fire. In order to prevent similar tragedies, Bellator becomes one of the Vigiles - the Watchmen of Rome. He soon discovers that the blaze that took Tillia’s life was no accident. A killer is on the loose, striking seemingly at random. With the victim count slowly increasing, piece by piece Bellator seeks a pattern in the madness as he hunts the murderer through the streets of Rome. Guardian of Rome:Incendium is by Matthew Harffy.

Omega Authority is by Brad Taylor. When a new bioweapon is stolen by hostile forces, the Taskforce must prevent worldwide devastation. American AI company Romulus Solutions has created a biomedical AI model that can target bacteria: a potential game-changing healthcare solution. When a cyber-attack from North Korea obtains the model, nobody is too worried, because of the unbreakable encryption. That is, until a mole inside Romulus vanishes with the keys to break the encryption, and with them, the power to engineer a devastating bioweapon. Pike Logan and the Taskforce are ordered to recover the keys. Their mission will take them through Japan and into the shadow world where the Yakuza and North Korea converge. With an enemy determined not to surrender, Pike and the team must recover the keys at all costs… even if it risks war on the Korean Peninsula.

No good deed goes unpunished. Jan Hughes prides herself on being helpful. An ordinary woman with an ordinary life, she processes background checks for people who want to work with the vulnerable. It feels good to be useful, to smooth things along, to say yes. So when someone asks her for a small favour – a name, an address – Jan tells herself it’s nothing. She just wants to be helpful. Until a news report shows a family has been found dead in the very house she identified. Now Jan is an unwitting accomplice, and the person who drew her in hasn’t finished yet. They want another favour – and this time Jan knows exactly what her answer could cost. One Last Favour is by Charlie Gallagher.

The Baker is Tim Sullivan. Murder is both a science and an art. Brian Fothergill co-owns a thriving Bristol bakery with two close friends that was built on a shared dream: to use their success to give something back, offering opportunities to those most often overlooked. Brian has always believed in doing good, in giving people second chances. So how has he ended up head down and lifeless at the bottom of an industrial dough mixer? Even in a place built on kindness, pressure can build. But who turned up the heat? DS George Cross is back to find out.

Forthcoming Books from Orion Publishing

 January 2027

Lie for Your Life by Anna Sharpe. 'You're trying to play a game with me. So is someone else. But me? I'm not playing. I'm not saying nothing more.' The truth doesn't always set you free. Nicole is a rising star in the courtroom - sharp, ambitious, and determined to outrun the shadow of her criminal family. Her latest case could make her career: prosecuting the infamous serial killer known as The Tattooist. It's a tough challenge, but Nicole is confident she can secure a conviction. Everything changes when Nicole discovers evidence that suggests the defendant may have been set up. Then a body is found followed by a threatening message: unless she secures a conviction of the man on trial, the killer will strike again. And this time, it's her family on the line. Torn between her loyalty to her family and desire for justice, Nicole is left with no choice but to hunt down the killer before the jury reach a verdict. Taut, twisty, darkly witty, and razor-sharp, Lie For Your Life is a gripping exploration of true crime obsession, the lies we tell and what we're willing to sacrifice to protect the people we love.

On an island with no way out, even old friends become suspects . . . When Cassie Brogan and her friends are invited to a school reunion on a remote island off the coast of Ireland, their first instinct is to refuse. Ravenwood Academy is a chapter of their lives they'd rather forget - a place haunted by tragedy, secrets and betrayal. But the lure of a five-star stay at the secluded and luxurious Tech Duinn Manor soon proves impossible to resist. As the guests begin to arrive, tensions rise and old rivalries reignite. When a dead body turns up, it soon becomes clear that someone is out for revenge.  Trapped on an island with no escape, Cassie must uncover the truth about what really happened at Ravenwood Academy - before history repeats itself. The Island is by Cathy Cole. 

Wolf Point is by Lisa Howells. One missing girl. Three possibilities. No turning back. Wolf Point, Alaska. When police officer Terril Black is thrust into the role of sergeant under brutal circumstances, she expects a quiet first night in charge. Instead, a teenage girl vanishes from a remote motel - and for Terril, walking away is never an option. With a department that doesn't want a woman in charge, a hostile officer undermining her at every turn, and a rookie fresh from Miami as her only back-up, she is plunged into a desperate missing persons investigation, racing against time and the elements. Here, it isn't the first 48 hours that count - it's the first four to eight. After that, even something innocent can end badly. But as she digs deeper, unsettling clues point towards something dark festering beneath the surface of this isolated small town. And when a violent snowstorm cuts them off from the outside world, Terril isn't just fighting to save the girl - she's fighting to get out alive. Yet Wolf Point never surrenders its humanity. Terril Black, Eli Ash, Angela Stone―you'll remember these names long past The End.'

February 2027

The Therapist's Secret is by Kingsley Pearson. Will he help her? Or hurt her? When therapist Aaron Pereira arrives on the Isle of Wight seeking a fresh start, the last thing he expects is to find himself caught in a tragedy. The police suspect that his predecessor, Dr Geoffrey Miller, is guilty of murdering a former patient. The problem? He's nowhere to be found. As long-buried secrets come to light, Aaron finds himself questioning everything the authorities claim and is drawn to investigate. After all, what would drive a respected and kindly therapist to harm a patient they're sworn to protect? And even worse - if a therapist like him could be a killer, what might Aaron himself be capable of?

March 2027

The Last Secret: Victor Rothschild and the Cambridge Spies by Roland Thomas. On a cold February day in 1944, a British intelligence officer knelt in a Northamptonshire field, staring into a crate of onions. Hidden inside: Nazi explosives, bound for British ships, planes and factories. He began to dismantle the bomb, dictating every move into a field telephone. One slip, and he would be blown to pieces. His name was Victor Rothschild, and he was one of the richest men in England. Darkly handsome, dazzlingly clever and unflinchingly brave, Rothschild was a rising star of British intelligence. He was also a Cambridge scientist, a first-class cricketer and heir to the legendary banking dynasty. He could have been anything he wanted. He chose to run MI5's counter-sabotage unit, disarming bombs and hunting Nazi agents. Yet the greatest danger he faced, and his greatest sacrifice, was personal. His friends from Cambridge, Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess, had shared his flat, his table and his trust. He helped them into positions of national importance, at the heart of British intelligence. Both were Soviet spies, traitors to Britain. The Last Secret is a true story of loyalty and betrayal, courage and misjudgment. Drawing on newly released MI5 files and unheard testimony, it reveals for the first time the extraordinary scope of this decades-long cat-and-mouse game - Rothschild's obsessive struggle to clear his own name and bring his former friends to justice.

When Lee Black – once the golden child of the crime community, now miserly creative writing lecturer – opens his student’s work-in-progress, he is at first confused, then slightly disturbed, and then, finally, flattered. It’s fanfiction. But what the awkward, brilliant Bella has done with his most famous character – classic detective figure DCI Last – is something far bolder and more subversive than he would ever have dreamed of … Sensing an incredible opportunity, Lee sends the first few chapters off to his agent, pretending to have written them. She loves them – and so does his former publisher. This is truly Lee’s ‘Last’ chance. This could change everything, even save his failing marriage. But when Lee tries to complete the new idea himself, it’s soon obvious he’s not getting it. He just needs to persuade Bella to come on board. And if she doesn’t agree? Well, there’s always his brother-in-law’s secluded countryside lodge to go to – perfect for a writing retreat. Of sorts. Fanfiction is by Liam Brown.

April 2027

My Husband's Family is by Kristina Kamen. 'Sleek as a yacht cutting through the Med, My

Husband's Family reads like the seaworthy lovechild of The Perfect Couple and The Guest List. Fabulous, funny, and pure escapist pleasure' Jenny Jackson, bestselling author of Pineapple Street and The Shampoo Effect. The Amalfi Coast is a dazzling backdrop for the day Rebecca marries Preston, the heir to the ultra-rich Wexley family. But when their honeymoon - a romantic break on a superyacht - turns into a family affair, she soon realises she'll have her work cut out with her new in-laws:· The mother-in-law, who rules the family with an iron will· The ex, now an executive at the Wexley enterprise, plotting her own rise to the top Preston's attention-seeking brother, Brad, and his influencer girlfriend· The influencer, scrambling for attention alongside Preston's emotionally stunted brother· And then there's the bride - Rebecca, an outsider whose past threatens to unravel the moment an unexpected guest arrives... When a body goes overboard in the middle of the night, no one can leave until the killer is caught. Everyone on board has their secrets and selfish motivations, and with so much at stake, even family isn't safe..

June 2027

There are three truths: My truths, Your Truth, and the Truth. French Riviera, Spring 2023. Off the coast of Cannes, a yacht drifts between the Lérins Islands. On board lies Oriana Di Pietro, an Italian publisher and heiress to a famous Milanese family. Brutally attacked, she succumbs after ten days in a coma. Who killed Oriana? A man and three women offer their version of the story: Adrien, the victim's husband, a seductive and mysterious jazz pianist; the elusive Adèle, his young mistress; Justine, the local police officer in charge of the investigation; and finally, Oriana herself, through the harrowing account of the last weeks of her life. No one is lying. But no one agrees on the truth. Someone Else is by Guillaume Musso.

Careful What You Wish For is by Kirsty Lockwood. The perfect home or your worst nightmare? After breaking up with her long term boyfriend, Freya is in a rut. Working a dead end job with debts mounting up she longs to escape. So when she hears about The Wishing Well, an app where wealthy donors grant wishes for deserving strangers, she decides she has nothing to lose. Within days, a donor known only as Anon grants her wish for 'escape' and Freya is gifted a stay in an isolated country cottage, rent free. The cottage is perfect and Freya finally has the freedom to focus on her dreams. However, not everything is as it seems, a young woman has gone missing in the nearby hills and Freya finds herself entangled in the investigation into her disappearance. As Anon bombards Freya with messages and gifts, it becomes clear that they believe they are owed for their generosity and will go to extreme lengths to get what they want . .

When Marianne Capaletti's mobester hsuband goes missing , she finds both the FBI and the Patriarca crime family at her door. As it becomes clear that her life and er son's are in grave danger, there is only one place she can flee to for safety. - the lawless frozen wasteland of Northern Quebec, and the home she swore she would never return to. When The Devil Knows Your Name is by R J Ellory.

One morning, a phone call from a real estate agent changes the life of Lumiere, a broke architect in Paris. He is invited to view a historic mansion on the Ile de la Cité, a location far beyond his wildest dreams. If approved, he'll be able to call it home.The only catch? He must visit the ailing owner at a sanatorium in Switzerland and help him uncover the family secrets embedded in the mansion's walls.. Where the Light Leads is by Heesung Baek.

Set over one eventful New Year's Eve in a luxury Dubai hotel – when the festivitoes are held up by armed mercenaries, ex-SAS fighter Sam and his daughter Megan must defy all odds to reunite. Freefall is by M J Arlidge

The London Silver Vaults – the largest collection of silver for sale in the world, with more locks than the Bank of England and more cameras than a celebrity punchup. Not somewhere you can murder someone without a trace- Only that's what happened. The disappearing act, the reports of a blinding flash of light, and memory loss amongst the witnesses make this a case for Detective Constable Peter Grant and the Special Assessment Unit. But Peter's about to encounter something – and somebody – that nobody expects. In High Places is by Ben Aaronovitch.

Anthony Award Winners

Anthony Award Winners were announced at Bouchercon 2026 in Calgary, October 24, 2026.  The list of all the nominations can be found here.

Winners

Best Hardcover Novel

The Black Wolf by Louise Penny 

Best First Novel

Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove 

Best paperback/eBook/Audiobook 

 Edge by Tracy Clark 

Best Children's YA

Death in the Cards by Mia P. Manansala 

Best Critical/Non-Fiction

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

Best Anthology/Collection

On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology edited by Curtis Ippolito Hollywood Kills edited by Adam Meyer & Alan Orloff 

Best Short Story

"AITA for Using My Husband's Hobby to Teach Him a Lesson" by Mindy Carlson 

Congratulations to all!

Forthcoming Books from Bitter Lemon Press

 January 2027

Strippers Always Need Legal Advice is by Iain Levison. A thousand dollars an hour. Hard to say no when you're a public defender spending your days — Sundays included — on the depressing files of small-time crooks. Then negotiating sentences with a prosecutor who's more powerful than you and considerably less competent. So Justin Sykes, worn down by the grind, accepts: one evening a week advising the dancers at a gentlemen's club, and a night across the street at the motel. Without asking too many questions Because everyone knows — strippers always need legal advice.

May 2027

In late 1989, as the Eastern Bloc collapses and money begins moving across borders as never before, a young Geneva banker and a small-time hustler fall in love in the most discreet city in the world — and decide that love alone is not enough. Svetlana is a brilliant, ambitious analyst at a private bank. Aldo is a tennis coach whose real trade is best left unexamined. Attraction becomes partnership, then appetite: for money, power, and the recognition money is supposed to buy. Inspired by a real Geneva embezzlement case and a real 1990 bank heist, Consumed, A Story of Greed and Desire follows two lovers who help themselves to the fortunes flowing through the city's banks — a “Genevan Bonnie and Clyde,” as one French critic called them. Prize-winning and internationally acclaimed, Joseph Incardona channels the savage wit of Martin Amis's Money and the cool dread of DeLillo's White Noise into a modern tragedy about a world where everything, and everyone, has a price. 

June 2027

Dead Man in the Square is by Ben Pastor. As Rome falls and the Wehrmacht retreats into the mountains — the same week the Allies storm Normandy — a German colonel investigates a murder he has no right to solve, using the one man he has orders to execute. Abruzzo, June 1944. Lieutenant Colonel Martin Bora is diverted into the wild country below the Gran Sasso on a mission he cannot refuse: destroy a cache of explosive diplomatic correspondence, then silence the socialist lawyer who holds it. He has barely arrived in the remote village of Faracruci when, unaware that the Allies have just landed in Normandy, an American soldier is found stabbed in the square. Bora can neither report the death nor investigate it officially — so he enlists the very man he is meant to execute. Together they uncover a second, older crime, and a truth that implicates the village's most respected citizen. Ben Pastor's ninth Martin Bora novel is the most purely enjoyable in the series: a classic village mystery, a wartime thriller, and a study of a man who believes in justice while being ordered to violate it.