Wedding Thrills by A.E. Gauntlett

I’m forever struck by an old YouTube video I once saw in which some clever editor had taken the much-beloved Mary Poppins and created a new, truly 21st Century trailer. The result was strange, uncanny. Gone was the whimsical and heart-warming movie we all know and love – umbrellas in flight, an emotionally buttoned-up father driven back into the loving arms of his family, furious spit-spotting down bannisters in the wrapper of a feel-good sing-a-long for all ages – and in its place, dark and twisted, was what would previously have seemed impossible: a horror film. Mary’s gentle lullabies were now the songs of a demonic spirit, luring little children to their windows, and her fanciful magic now the torturous gifts of a punitive, child-hating entity who arrives on the wind one day and steals all joy from the world.

What this brilliant bit of editing demonstrates is just how fragile the boundaries of genre are. Ancillary tropes that we take for granted as emblematic of specific genres are slippery and open to manipulation and reinvention. Put simply: one slight turn of the dial can transform a technicolour dream into a Ken Russell-esque nightmare. 

Two genres that have always seemed to me natural bedfellows under the right conditions are thrillers and romances – for a hungry, lustful relationship can so easily turn toxic, and what thriller is complete without the promise (or threat) of a romantic connection made (or broken)?

We're all familiar with the wedding as a backdrop to a rom-com - the final act; the joyful destination after a long, troubled-journey; an event to wash out the old and welcome the new; the fresh start; the happily-ever-after. It is the pinnacle of the rising tension, a restoration of equilibrium, the moment of arrival. Indeed, Hollywood's idea of the wedding has become so ingrained in us that, for the past half-decade, life has grown to imitate art. Weddings have become more lavish affairs, more choreographed, more pressured. And so, fiction has birthed reality. 

The union of two families bound by the ultimate expression of an enduring love mark weddings as quintessentially joyful, supposedly harmonious, occasions. But one upending of a familiar trope, and we're in very different territory. The bridal expectation can soon turn to dread, the coming together of the tribes can give rise to friction, long-buried secrets can bubble to the surface, and any last-minute doubts can cast a heavy pall across the entire occasion. Harried brides, nervous groomsmen, fractious families, and emotional guests. In many ways, the wedding is the perfect setting for a thriller.

It was no accident, then, that I chose a wedding as the focal point of my thriller, The Stranger at the Wedding. The book starts with a wedding, and it ends with one, though the two occasions are worlds apart and troubled for very different reasons. In our main event, we meet our mild-mannered, diffident protagonist, Annie, who is about to marry Mark, a surgeon, following a whirlwind romance. As they’re about to cement their love before a throng of well-wishers, Annie spots a face in the crowd she doesn’t recognise: a man, she suspects, who has come to raze to the ground all that she has built with Mark.

Who can say, hand on heart, that we have known every single person at our own weddings? Those we don’t recognise, we trust, were invited by our partners – work colleagues, distant relatives, rekindled friends, perhaps. Weddings have far too many moving parts for any one person to keep on top of every detail; I guess that’s why so many of us turn to wedding planners. Such occasions, fraught with both anxiety, excitement and doubt, allow the unexpected to rear its ugly head. Therein lies the potential for drama, both quiet- and explosive.

In The Stranger at the Wedding, though, it is not the uninvited guest who initially throws the event into crisis, but the groom himself, who turns to Annie, our not-so-blushing bride, and delivers the hammer blow at the end of the opening Act: we need to talk. But this comes as no great surprise to Annie; she had been expecting this. Both parties, it seems, have been concealing, and it is the public spectacle of the wedding itself that has forced them out of hiding. 

A writer is a little like a conductor, deciding which bits of the orchestra to dial up, and which to dial down at any given moment. A wedding – this wedding – could have gone one of two ways. I chose to dial up the tension, the element of the unknown, the fear of losing someone close to you. In another world, I could have foregrounded the couples’ love, their complete and utter joy, their journey off into the sunset, and that – much like a re-cut Mary Poppins trailer – would have told a very different story.

The Stranger at The Wedding by A E Gauntlett. (Bloomsbury Publishing) Out Now Annie never believed in true love. Not until she met Mark. It’s a whirlwind romance and Annie has never felt surer about anything in her life. But as she stands at the altar, she spots an unknown face in the crowd. Who is the stranger at the wedding? What really happened to Mark’s first wife? And is Annie really the person she says she is? The stranger at the wedding: whose side are you on?

The author can be found on X @albioneye

Peter Swanson says “Kill Your Darlings”

 

Here at Shots Magazine we’ve followed the work of Peter Swanson eagerly from his 2014 debut novel ‘The Girl with a Clock for a Heart’ right up to his latest, ‘Kill Your Darlings’ which is released on 3^rd July 2025 – a date to mark boldly in your diary.

We wrote about Swanson’s latest novel –

“Thom Graves is a tenured English Professor in his mid-fifties. His wife Wendy also works in academia, and was a published poet in her youth. She considers that her husband drinks too much, has a wandering eye and worryingly has started writing a novel – a murder mystery. Wendy can tolerate his drinking and even his flings with younger women at the University – but what she cannot accept is his writing.

At a dinner party she ponders what her life would be like without him so she decides to murder him.”

‘Kill Your Darlings’ is a difficult book to review without revealing spoilers, as the narrative unspools in reverse. I pondered upon Søren Kierkegaard’s assertion that “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

“I sat in silence when I put the book down, and have been pondering the narrative as Kill your Darlings provokes deep thought – contemplation of fate intertwined with free-will to form our lives and our deaths and that of others that we interact with.”

Read the full review [free from spoilers] HERE

So after putting down “Kill Your Darlings” I had a few questions for the author, which Peter kindly answered and which we now present for our readers -

Ali: Welcome to Shots Magazine

Peter: Hey, great to be here

AK: We were floored by your latest novel KILL YOUR DARLINGS so could you let us know where the kernel for this novel’s idea came from?

PS: It came from two places. One was the desire to write a novel in reverse. So much of crime fiction is about how the bad deeds of the past effect the present, so I wanted to explore that by going backwards. The second spark for this novel was really thinking about what would happen if the adulterous couple in Double Indemnity or Body Heat, or really any story in which a married woman talks her lover into killing her husband, got away with it. What would their lives look like in thirty years?

AK: I find your female characters so very intriguing and perhaps the adage that “the female of the species is deadlier than the male” to be especially applicable in your work, including in your latest – would you care to discuss?

PS: Maybe it’s because historically men are more violent than women that killer female characters are so interesting. They have to overcome their natures in order to kill, unlike men, who are overcoming their natures in order to not kill. I’m sure that’s reductive, but I think there is some truth in it. Anyway, I enjoy writing deadly females probably for the same reason people like to read about them.  

AK: There is complexity in your work, but it’s deft [in so far as the narrative appears effortlessly constructed to the reader]. So are you a plotter or do you just follow the muse and hope everything will turn out fine?

PS: In general, I’m a muse-follower, hoping for the best. However, in writing Kill Your Darlings I had to, by necessity, do a little more classic plotting. I needed to know what happened in the past, of course, in order to explore how these characters were acting in the present. That said, I never did an outline for this book, and there are some elements to the story that I discovered in the course of writing.

AK: The subtle details embedded in the narrative of KILL YOUR DARLINGS added nuance making it [deliciously] thought provoking. The mention / references of a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, Herge’s Tintin in Tibet, William Peter Blatty…..even the title of Wendy’s debut poetry collection…….   Did you plan these [and others] or did they appear naturally?

PS: A lot of the references appear naturally, in the sense that when I am working on a novel my mind is filled with favourite books and poems and movies that might have some relevance to what I’m working on. But, of course, there’s some manipulation. Once I knew that Jason, Thom and Wendy’s son, was a Tintin reader, it made sense for the story for him to be carrying around Tintin in Tibet, the book that Herge claimed originated from his middle-aged dreams of dying.

AK: Which of your previous novels did you enjoy writing the most and why?

PS: Well, it wasn’t Kill Your Darlings, which got very tricky to write for a period of time, so much so that I almost abandoned it. The book I loved writing was The Rules for Perfect Murders (Eight Perfect Murders in the States), mostly because I could spend so much time exploring the plots and intricacies of some of my favourite crime novels. As you’ve already mentioned I do love references, and I didn’t need to hold back with this particular book.

AK: I find your later novels to be particularly memorable especially, RULES FOR PERFECT MURDERS , A TALENT FOR MURDER and NINE LIVES as I still think about them from time to time. Do you find the writing process to have gotten easier than when you started over a decade ago or has each novel gotten harder to shape?

PS: All novels are hard to write, and it doesn’t get any easier. I do think that now that I have written a dozen novels maybe I’m allowing a little more quirk and personality into my stories than I did when I first started out. Maybe I trust my instincts (for better or worse) more than when I was a younger writer.

AK: I found your novella THE CHRISTMAS GUEST to be very dark, but told in an engaging manner – will we ever see a collection of shorter work from you?

PS: I think I have enough stories right now to be a collection, but I’m not sure they are good enough. However, I’d like to come out with a short story collection one day but maybe there would be only one. I find short stories really hard to write, and I’ve yet to write one that I am a hundred percent pleased with. I think I would be more likely to come out with a novella collection, since that is a length I am very comfortable working in.

AK: And any more information about film rights to your work as we heard Julia Roberts has expressed interest in KILL YOUR DARLINGS?

PS: She brought on James Gray to write the script and direct the film, if it gets made. That’s pretty much all I know. I suspect that the next element will be finding a male lead. They really keep the writers in the dark about this whole process, or maybe they just keep me in the dark. Regardless, it’s an exciting possibility, one I have very little to do with.

AK: And what Books and Films have you enjoyed recently?

PS: I liked Steven Soderbergh’s film Black Bag. It sold itself as a spy thriller but it was much more of a kind of classic who-dunit, a chamber piece book-ended by two dinner parties. I really loved Janice Hallett’s next book, Killer Question, all about a murder wrapped into a weekly pub quiz. Very clever. And I also loved William Boyd’s new book, Gabriel’s Moon, about a travel writer in the 1960s who gets recruited by the secret service.

AK: And would you care to share what are you working on currently?

PS: I’ve written another Christmas novella, and that will be coming out in the autumn of 2026. And now I’m getting ready to start a new novel that would come out in 2027.

AK: Thank you for your time to speak with our British readers.

PS: My pleasure, Ali.

Shots Magazine would like to thanks Sopha Cerullo and Angus Cargill of Faber and Faber [London] for their help in facilitating this interview with Peter Swanson.

If you’ve not read Peter Swanson, where’ve you been?

Bibliography

Henry Kimball / Lily Kintner Novels

The Kind Worth Killing (2015)      

The Kind Worth Saving (2023)     

A Talent for Murder (2024)

Standalone Novels

The Girl with a Clock for a Heart (2014)  

Her Every Fear (2017)        

All the Beautiful Lies (2018)         

Before She Knew Him (2019)      

Rules for Perfect Murders aka Eight Perfect Murders (2020) 

Every Vow You Break (2021)       

Nine Lives (2022)   

Kill Your Darlings (2025)   

Short Stories/Novellas

The Christmas Guest (2023)         

The Honeymoon Trap (2022)       

More information available > https://www.peter-swanson.com and HERE

 

My Random Route to Becoming a Crime Thriller Writer by S. M. Govett

 

My debut crime thriller, BELIEVE, is out with Penguin Michael Joseph on 19^th June and I couldn’t be more excited. I haven’t exactly followed a direct route to this moment, but I don’t regret the meandering path I’ve taken as I’ve learnt something important from each venture along the way.

I began my adult life studying law at Oxford. It was a fascinating degree and I loved it. It was all about ideas and thought experiments – what the law should be, the impact of particular cases, the extent to which individual liberties were and should be curtailed. It suited my argumentative nature and taught me self-reliance. The course was entirely tutorial-based and essentially self-taught. We’d get a reading list and an essay title and then have to produce and be ready to defend a piece by the following week. Writing is similarly a completely self-motivated business. You need that internal discipline and drive, or you’ll never finish a book, and this really laid the foundations for that. My degree also honed my ability to structure my writing, because each week I had to formulate a robust argument that could withstand my tutor’s attempts to tear it apart. Crime and thriller novels are so plot heavy, you need that solid structure, to know exactly how all the strands tie together and how changing one element will impact everything else.

On graduating, I joined a big City law firm as that’s what everyone did and they’re the ones who offer the most money. It might sound basic, but twenty-one-year-olds generally are, and I was no exception. But I knew from the moment I beeped in through those turnstiles that this wasn’t the career for me. There was no discussion of ideas, no debate about what the law should be. It was just business. Very much download and amend this standard form contract and stay here all night if you need to. However, I met some fun people, and learnt work efficiency – we had to account for and bill every 6 minute chunk of the day – and this means that as a writer I can instantly click into writing mode. There’s no gazing out the window, I’m focused, immersed, from the moment I sit at my desk, even if it means I burn out three hours later! I also learnt how to write an accurate lawyer character for BELIEVE – bonus!

I stuck it out at the law firm until I qualified and then I left and did random, ridiculous things for a year as a sort of late-onset teen rebellion. I designed t-shirts that I sewed on my sofa – Jordan (now, Katie Price) actually wore one on the front cover of OK! magazine to celebrate her engagement to Peter Andre – and this taught me the art of the cold sell. That ability to swallow your pride and go and stick your neck out and promote yourself. There are fewer scarier things I’ve ever done than walk into high-end shops unannounced and ask if they’d like to buy my t-shirts. This experience has stood me in good stead now that I’m trying to promote my book. I’ve managed to eradicate my embarrassment reflex and talking to booksellers doesn’t phase me at all.

In my absurd year I also did some modelling. Which might sound glamorous and exciting, but it really wasn’t. I did shows in London, Athens and Chicago but most of it was hanging around, getting really, really bored and then being judged on my looks alone and having them discussed and dissected as if I weren’t even present. It taught me that whatever I did with my life, it had to involve using my brain. And the time I now spend writing in my attic, in an old sweatshirt, conjuring up worlds and characters, is a hundred times more exciting than prancing about on a runway in a lace catsuit ever was.

When that year came to an end, I decided I needed to grow up. I started doing private tutoring and ended up setting up my own agency. I really enjoyed it. It’s such a privilege to be able to work one-on-one with a student and see the exponential progress they can make, that lightbulb moment when it all clicks together for them. However, I also saw just how stressful lots of young people find our examination-based education system and this gave me the idea for my first YA book: The Territory. When my daughter was born, I decided to have a go at writing it. I was taking 6 months’ maternity leave anyway, so while she slept, I wrote. She was a rubbish sleeper, so it took a while, but I loved every moment and was lucky enough to end up with an initial three-book deal.

Writing YA was excellent preparation for writing thrillers. Teens have such limited attention spans, so you have to hook them in quickly and then keep them there with twists, short chapters, and relatable characters. Exactly the same applies to adults.

With six YA books under my belt, I decided I wanted to have a go at screenwriting. My husband and I wrote a sci-fi thriller film together – T.I.M. – about a humanoid A.I. robot that becomes obsessed with its female owner and will do anything it can to take her husband’s place. This was such fun to write, and it was amazing seeing it reach the number one spot on Netflix upon release and then stay in the top ten for three weeks.

It made me realise that I really wanted to write an adult thriller novel next. And the idea for one was starting to dawn on me. I wrote it in a fevered six months and the rest, as they say, is history.

If you get a chance to pick up BELIEVE, I hope you enjoy it reading it at least a tenth of the amount I enjoyed writing it. Thank you!

 © 2025 S.M. Govett

 Read the Shots Review HERE

 More information HERE

Shots Magazine would like to thank Rowland White, Sriya Varadharajan and Gaby Young of Penguin Random House for introducing our readers to this intriguing writer.

 

Parker investigates Connolly

 

John Connolly is a very busy man. He unfailingly publishes a new book every year, alternating between his long-running Charlie Parker PI series as well as novels that can only be described as departures, or other creative endeavors such as “He” which he published in 2017, or his collections of short fiction, his collaborations and occasional pieces of journalism.

John has recently completed his Master’s Degree from University College Cork, Ireland. He hosts his own Radio show ABC to XTC with John Connolly Saturdays on RTE at 17:00 - 18:00 and he happily travels the world to promote his books and entertaining his readers and fans.

He has just completed a tour to promote THE CHILDREN OF EVE in the UK and Ireland [read the Shots review HERE].  In fact, you can follow John on Instagram HERE where he reviews all the hotel rooms he stays in while on tour. You are always guaranteed a chuckle.

So just before taking a well-earned break from the UK and Ireland leg of his promotional tour, John found time to answer a few questions about his latest work, including links to his previous work such as The Black Angel which predates The Children of Eve by a quarter of a century; how the Charlie Parker series is progressing, and early word about a new book set against the backdrop to the Watergate Affair……

John Parker: I was intrigued by the title of the novel, especially as you take it from the Salva Regina, a prayer well-known to Catholics, lapsed or not.

“…poor banished children of Eve / to thee do we send up our sighs/Mourning and weeping in this vale of tears:” Can you comment on that?

John Connolly: I was raised Catholic, and still have some vestiges of faith, so that prayer has always stayed with me. The novel never had any other title, but I suppose I liked the idea of those words being directed towards an entity that was about as far removed from the Virgin Mary as one could get…

John Parker: Where did the idea of mother and the children come from? I researched a bit and came across information about Inca mythology and the Capacocha ritual where children were chosen for sacrifice. Am I on the wrong track?  

John Connolly: It arose from a road trip I took while in Argentina about fifteen years or so ago, when I stumbled across a curious, macabre, and poignant piece of archaeological history and stored it away for use someday, as writers will do. I’m reluctant to go into too much detail, as one of the mysteries that Parker is trying to solve in the novel concerns the nature of the children. It’s a difficult book to discuss without giving too much away!

John Parker: Charlie is now middle-aged and seems to be noticing it more. There’s not a lot of running around these days. Hardly surprising, I know. Tell us about how you see the evolution of the man.

John Connolly: He’s in his late fifties, and his closest colleagues are older still. He’s in a certain amount of physical pain, he prefers to avoid physical confrontations when he can, and his reactions are not what they once were. In other words, he is, like many of us, getting on a bit. But he’s also more at peace with himself than he once was, and his rage has abated. He, like the books, is moving towards a conclusion – or a revelation, perhaps.

John Parker: Charlie’s late daughter plays an important role and perhaps you are changing tack and heading towards the grand finale of the saga? I say this because of the appearance of figures in that “unreal lagoon” who are perturbed by her presence.

John Connolly: I’ve said for a long time that I felt Parker’s story required a conclusion, and the novels are moving in that direction. The difficulty for me is that I still love writing about him, and have no shortage of ideas that I’d like to explore, so I’m trying to balance one imperative against a desire to continue in that universe. The Children of Eve offers a suggestion as to how that might be accomplished, but then there are other books I’d also like to write, some in other genres. I guess I’m dealing with the issue of what kind of career I envisage for myself in a decade, or two decades, should I live that long. 

John Parker: What a surprise to see the return of Martin Reid from 2005’s The Black Angel. Can you talk about that? Has his return always been part of your plans? 

John Connolly: I plan in general terms – I know where the series is going – but I’m always open to whatever ideas or characters pop up along the way. I was writing that section and Martin emerged from the woods, bless him. I think my unconscious must have been quietly preparing the way for him.

John Parker: What’s in the future for Charlie Parker? And for John Connolly? 

John Connolly: Next year’s book is my first mystery to move away entirely from the Parker universe. It’s called The Castle and is set against the backdrop of the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973. After that, I’ll return to Parker for 2027’s novel, which I’m working on at the moment, and then I have a hankering to return to historical fiction for one book. 

John Parker: Here’s a question I always ask you; what are you currently reading?

John Connolly: I’m working my way through Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels, along with Ian Leslie’s John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs and Lucy Mangan’s Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives. I tend to alternate between fiction and non-fiction. 

John Parker: And as you are a music lover with your own radio show and a big fan of the podcast Word in your Ear, can you remember the first record you ever bought?

John Connolly: The first album was ABBA’s Arrival, and the first single was Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. Both were hugely expensive relative to my income. I think I put less thought into buying my first car than I did that first single…

John Parker: That’s great! Thanks for giving us your time, John.

John Connolly: And great to talk again, stay well John and all at Shots Magazine.

Shots Magazine would like to thank Laura Sherlock, and from Hodder and Stoughton Publishing Rebecca Mundy and Francesca Russell – for their help in organizing this short chat with writers John Connolly and John Parker.

More information about Laura’s work is available HERE

More information on the work of John Connolly is available HERE and from Shots Magazine’s Archives HERE

Mel Pennant on Miss Hortense

My protagonist in A Murder for Miss Hortense is retired nurse, keen gardener, renowned cook and fearless sleuth, Miss Hortense, a formidable woman from the Windrush generation. She emigrated from Jamaica in the 1960s and moved to the quiet fictional suburb of Bigglesweigh in Birmingham, where she was not immediately welcomed.   

She takes great pride in her home and is also quite observant about other peoples’, though she doesn’t care what other people think about her. She’s gots skills . . . She can tell when a Jamaican patty doesn’t include all the right ingredients and is an expert at uncovering secrets.

My husband describes Miss Hortense as ‘like water’ – she gets everywhere. She is fearless and will knock down walls to get to the truth. But Miss Hortense also carries a wound. Something very traumatic happened to her thirty-five years ago and when an unidentified man is found dead, her long buried past comes rushing back to greet her. She knows that, in order to solve the crimes of the current day, she must go back and solve the crimes of the past. 

At the heart of my novel is the Pardner. A Pardner, also called Box Hand or Sousou in the Caribbean community, is at its basic level a mutual saving scheme. A group of people come together and pool their resources, then the accumulated wealth is distributed on a regular basis amongst the contributing members.  

In the UK, the Pardner was and still is used by the Windrush generation (‘Windrush generation’ to describe the women and men who came to the UK between 1948 and 1971 from the Caribbean to assist in rebuilding the country after the Second World War, and who went on to make the UK their home). At that time, one of the reasons the Pardner was so prolific was because many Afro-Caribbean communities were excluded from traditional forms of credit and finance and/or distrustful of it.  

At the core of any Pardner there is a person who leads it, often a matriarchal figure, who provides discipline and keeps everyone in line; she is often called the Pardner Lady.  

The idea of the Pardner fascinates me. It was used as a solution to a problem encountered by my grandparents and their generation because of a lack of access to traditional forms of finance. I thought, what other problems might a community like theirs have encountered? What other ideas might they come up with to overcome them? It felt logical to me to extend the remit of Miss Hortense and her Pardner Network to solving crime – and so the Pardner Network of Bigglesweigh was born, originally a group of eight men and women whose mission was to find justice for those who couldn’t find it for themselves.  

The inspiration for A Murder for Miss Hortense partly came from my grandmothers, who were both phenomenal women and my paternal grandmother was even a Pardner Lady. As I’ve got older, I’ve become more in awe of them and their courageousness.

Golden Age crime mysteries were a big influence while writing A Murder for Miss Hortense, along with Barbara Neely’s Blanche White series, whose heroine is an African-American housekeeper turned sleuth and one of the first Black female fictional detectives who used the whodunit as a tool for racial and social commentary.  

A Murder for Miss Hortense is set in the 1960s and 2000s. I wanted readers to understand the history of Miss Hortense and how and why the Pardner Network was created as part of the grounding for what happens in the current day. I’m a firm believer that the past is part of our present.

I hope you enjoy being with Miss Hortense and the Pardner Network as much as I have. I’m really excited for what’s to come.

A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant (John Murray Press) Out Now

Death has come to her doorstep . . .Retired nurse, avid gardener, renowned cake maker and fearless sleuth Miss Hortense has lived in Bigglesweigh, a quiet Birmingham suburb, since she emigrated from Jamaica in 1960. She takes great pride in her home, starching her lace curtains bright white, and she can tell if she's been short-changed on turmeric before she's even taken her first bite of a beef patty. Thirty-five years of nursing have also left her afraid of nobody - be they a local drug dealer or a priest - and an expert in deciphering other people's secrets with just a glance. Miss Hortense uses her skills to investigate the investments of the Pardner network - a special community of Black investors, determined to help their people succeed. But when an unidentified man is found dead in one of the Pardner's homes, a Bible quote noted down beside his body, Miss Hortense's long-buried past comes rushing back to greet her, bringing memories of the worst moment of her life, one which her community has never let her forget. It is time for Miss Hortense to solve a mystery that will see her, and the community she loves, tested to their limits.

More information about Mel Pennant can be found on her website. You can also find her on X @MelPennant, on Instagram @mel_pennant and on Facebook.

In The St Hilda's Spotlight - Catherine Ryan Howard

Name:- Catherine Ryan Howard

Job:- Author

Website:- https://catherineryanhoward.com

Instagram:- @cathryanhoward

Introduction:-

Catherine Ryan Howard is an award wining author who has been shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Novel, the UK Crime Writers Association John Creasey/New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Awards, and the An Post Irish Crime Fiction Book of the Year multiple times. 

Her novels have been included in the New York Times Best Thrillers of the Year, the Washington Post’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers of the Year and the Sunday Times Best Thrillers of the Year. A screen adaptation of her fifth novel 56 Days is due to debut exclusively on Amazon Prime in early 2026. 

Current book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing or both)

I’m currently reading Author Unknown: Tales of a Literary Detective by Don Foster and writing what will be my ninth thriller. It’s about ‘stigmatized properties’, i.e. houses with horrible pasts. 

Has any gothic book spooked you and if so which one and why

Despite writing about serial killers for a living, I am a complete coward and so they all do. But I remember very clearly being genuinely disturbed by Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. To quote Joey from Friends, I had to put the book in the freezer. 

Which two gothic writers would you invite to dinner and why?

Shirley Jackson and Mary Shelley, because I think they’d have a fascinating conversation with each other and I could just sit there and listen. 

How do you relax?

Like many of my crime-writing colleagues, I watch, listen to or read a bit of true crime.

Which gothic book do you wish you had written and why?

I wish I had the brains and imagination to produce something like House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. 

If you were to write a gothic book where would you set it and why?

Full disclosure: I had a great answer to this question. I started typing it. I went online to check a few details – and fell down a rabbit hole and discovered loads of new things about the place I had in mind that made me think, hmm, maybe I should set a thriller there. So now I can’t tell you about it, sorry! But it’s amazing place… (I tease, I know.) Let’s say instead a big house out in the middle of nowhere that seems to be made completely of glass. I don’t understand how people live in those kinds of houses. Great during the day, yes, but I wouldn’t be able to stand it at night. 

How would you describe your latest published book?

 It’s a thriller about an inexperienced ghostwriter who’s tasked with helping a man accused of murder tell his story of the story, which according to him is that he’s innocent.

With Detecting the Gothic: tales from the Dark Heart of Crime Fiction the theme at St Hilda's this year, which are you three favourite gothic authors or books

Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews, The Shining by Stephen King and Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier aka the classic trio of age-inappropriate childhood reads. 

Which 3 gothic films would you rewatch and why.

The Others (loosely inspired by The Turn of the Screw) and Shutter Island (adapted from Dennis Lehane’s novel) because they both have truly superb twists, and then something lighter like Beetlejuice to calm me down after the trauma of the first two.

What are you looking forward to at St Hilda's?

Me reading the last sentence of my paper, because I’m so nervous about it! But honestly, the whole thing. So many crime writers have told me about their incredible experiences at past weekends and the programme looks absolutely fascinating. I just know it’s going to be a joy. 

Burn After Reading by Catherine Ryan Howard (Transworld Publication) 

A ghostwriter is tasked with capturing the memoirs of a man who might be a murderer and he's ready to confess...The night Jack Smyth ran into flames in a desperate attempt to save his wife from their burning home, he was, tragically, too late - but hailed a hero. Until it emerged that Kate was dead long before the fire began. Suspicion has stalked him ever since. After all, there's no smoke without fire. A year on, he's signed a book deal. He wants to tell his side of the story, to prove his own innocence in print. He just needs someone to help him write it.Emily has never ghostwritten anything before, but she knows what it’s like to live with a guilty secret. And she's about to learn that some stories should never be told .

Information on how to buy online tickets can be found here. The programme can be found here.

#HCFW25

Photograph ©Bríd O’Donovan

 

Remembering Joe Hartlaub [Sept 11 1951 - May 29 2025]

 

Shots Magazine’s editors Mike Stotter and I were devastated to hear the sad news of the passing of Joe Hartlaub, as were so many of us in the crime, mystery and thriller genre.

Apart from one of our Greatest Book Reviewers, specialising in Thriller Fiction, and a writer in his own right - he was a renowned attorney specialising in the Music Industry.

I was first aware of Joe’s reputation in the world of Thriller Fiction from Carol Fitzgerald’s Book Reporter. I enjoyed her weekly emails each and every Saturday Morning in my inbox; always seeking out Joe Hartlaub’s Thriller Picks and his reviews of newly published work.

Click Here, for Bookreporter.com  

I finally got to meet Carol and Joe in the summer of 2006, at International Thrillers’ [ITW] first convention, held at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix in 2006. We were jurors at an event entitled “The Jack Reacher Trial” which featured two attorneys on opposite sides of the mock courtroom, one for the prosecution, and one for the defence of Lee Child’s character [played by the author himself]. The attorneys were played by legal thriller writers who were actually lawyers in their day jobs. I recall one being Paul Levine but sadly my memory fails to recall the second legal thriller writer.  

From that time onwards a friendship blossomed based on our love of all things bibliophilic.

Both Mike Stotter and I would enjoy meeting up with Carol and Joe on our annual excursions across the Atlantic at future Thrillerfests and Bouchercon conventions.

One of the most memorable times being Hat Shopping with Kelli Stanley and Joe in Cleveland Ohio, during Bouchercon 2012, as well as bumping into each other  several times during Bouchercon Indianapolis in 2009.

And the impromptu meeting on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in 2016  

Joe would send me a text message audio recording of himself singing me Happy Birthday. Shortly after learning of his passing, I learned he was sending these little audio clips to many of his friends and colleagues.

They always raised a smile.

Both Mike and I had been in touch with Joe just last month, discussing meeting up during the 2025 Bouchercon in New Orleans this coming September. This city on the Louisiana Bayou was one of Joe’s favourite cities in North America – probably due to its rich music heritage, especially of the Blues. Joe had explained that though excited at the prospect – especially as we’d not seen each other since 2016 – however he said he was a tad ‘under the weather’, but hoped to get better in time for September’s Bouchercon.

Sadly, we heard via Carol Fitzgerald that Joe passed away last week.

Joe’s Obituary is HERE fittingly hosted at The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

“Joe graduated from the University of Akron in 1973 with a Bachelor of Science (Accounting) and obtained a Juris Doctorate from the University of Akron [School of Law] in 1977, when he began a legal career spanning five decades. The majority of his 48 years in practice were devoted to entertainment law, thanks in no small part to Joe's lifelong love of music and the written word. He took great pleasure in helping his clients and worked tirelessly on their behalf. “

Signing off, the obituary closed with Chuck Berry line >

"'C'est la vie,' say the old folks, 'It goes to show you never can tell.'"

The Complete Obituary is HERE

Apart from the memories Joe leaves behind, his blogposts at Kill Zone remain archived and can be accessed HERE and when Joe retired from book reviewing at Bookreporter, in the summer of 2021, Carol Fitzgerald organised a special feature entitled “Hats Off to Joe Hartlaub” in which she asked many writers and colleagues of Joe to write a little about what Joe Hartlaub’s work meant to them – and it’s a fitting tribute to this dear friend and colleague of the world of Thriller Fiction.

It can be accessed HERE

And finally let’s conclude with a song