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. 

Derek Byrne on the Boy He Didn’t Trust.

Before I wrote Pretty Boy Red, I found myself drawn to writing from the perspective of a boy who was not entirely innocent. His name was Troy, the central character from my first novel Shotline. He seemed vulnerable until the moment he became dangerous. To get into his head I had to enter a different mental space, tripping along in a kind of stream-of-consciousness where madness was never far away. It was fun in a reckless sort of way, but I didn’t really think this kind of ruleless writing would see the light of day. Shotline has never been published, but the character Troy was knocking around in my head waiting for another chance. And it came. 

My attachment to Australia stretches back decades, along with a fascination for those quirky crime cases rooted in the landscape – kidnappings, murders, people vanishing without trace into the vastness. In June 2022, I read a news report from Perth in Western Australia: boys as young as fourteen had been transferred from Banksia Hill Youth Detention Centre to the adult prison at Casuarina, after they’d left their own facility unfit for habitation. There was an outcry. Children in an adult prison. Opinions divided. Some argued they deserved it; others that they were victims of a system that had failed them. Out of that tension, the character Joel Brady was born. Fourteen years old, nicknamed “Psycho” for his violent outbursts, he is awaiting trial for a crime so grave that he is to be judged in adult court before the public. Although inspired by contemporary events, I chose to set the story back in the late 80s early 90s, when I lived in Australia and was immersed in youth culture. This was a pre-digital world: no mobile phones, networked computing confined largely to academic and official settings. Distance, silence, and institutional opacity allowed dark undercurrents to fester, the kind that would later surface in crimes such as the Snowtown murders and backpacker murders. 

Joel is part of a cohort transferred into the wing of a harsh adult prison. I imagined a setting like Fremantle Gaol in Western Australia, closed in 1991, with its slopping out, rats, dirty brick walls and imposing gatehouse entrance, the site of a violent riot in 1988 in which guards were taken hostage. The aim was to place these boys under relentless pressure. 

The story begins when Joel catches sight of an adult prisoner who seems to recognise him, triggering a memory buried deep in his subconscious. There can be no contact between adult and juvenile inmates, but Joel senses a creeping menace behind the walls and corridors of the wing – a smell he seems to recognize, a name scratched onto a wall, a drawing shoved under the door to his cell. When a prisoner goes missing, his imagination begins to fill in the gaps. 

The difficulty with Joel is not simply that he may be guilty. It’s that he may not be telling the truth, even to himself. Joel is awaiting trial for his role in a series of abductions. Hugh, one of the boys who survived, is called by the Crown to testify. The trial becomes a central tension in the novel, the clash between Joel and Hugh. Who is telling the truth? 

Joel has memory gaps. Fragments arrive out of sync, often in second person, as if he is watching someone else. “There is a difference between unwilling and unable,” his psychiatrist tells the court when questioned about Joel’s dissociative amnesia. Even inside prison, Joel’s version of events is not left unchallenged. His cellmate Glenn – initially an enemy – becomes one of the few steady points in Joel’s fractured world,pushing him towards truths he would rather avoid. And me, the writer – can I trust Joel? At times it feels as though he is leading me, not the other way round. 

And what of Troy? He gave me the clues to get inside Joel’s head, to explore that space, to understand what it would be like to be that boy standing in rooms created for adults: a dock cell, a corridor of stone, a slop-stained cell, wondering who he is supposed to be, swinging between crisis, submission, and defiance. Joel resists explanation. He withholds. He distorts. The only way to write Joel was to keep following him, even when I no longer knew where he was leading me. But that is the point. Joel was never meant to be fully understood, or fully believed. He was the boy I didn’t trust.

Pretty Boy Red by Derek Byrne (Eye Books) Out Now

Child prisoner Joel Brady is facing trial for murder. If he can survive that long. 'Vivid, complex, hard-hitting and compelling' Ray Robinson In the juvenile wing of a prison in Western Australia, fourteen-year-old Joel Brady - small, girly-voiced, nicknamed 'Psycho' - is awaiting trial for his role as sidekick to child abductor Marcus Welby. Joel still isn't sure what he did that last day at Welby's outback house of horror; his memory has blotted it out. Is his mind playing tricks in other respects too? Did he really see the malevolent Quentin, another of Welby's associates, in the adult wing of the prison? Or is Quentin a figment of his imagination, as Joel's lawyers insist? A more immediate priority is hiding from the rampaging cons who have escaped the adult wing, one of whom wants Joel's head. Will his cellmate Glenn, an arch-enemy who has become his first real friend, stay loyal? Set in an ultra-violent, alpha-male world where human connection is a double-edged sword, and interwoven with a gripping courtroom drama in which the truth about Welby's chilling set-up gradually emerges.

More information about the author can be found on his website. He can also be found on Instagram @Derek171923. On Facebook and on X@Bai39878353Paul.

The Idea Behind An Ordinary House by Rae Starling

In August 2006 – almost 20 years ago to the day that I’m writing this article – I was living in Germany and driving to collect my young children from a play party. The news came on the car radio with a lead headline about a girl who had suddenly appeared on a street in neighbouring Austria after being missing for eight years. The story sounded fantastical. Thinking my German must have let me down, I quickly tuned to an English-language radio station. What I thought I’d heard was confirmed. Natascha Kampusch hadn’t been seen since she vanished on her way to school at the age of ten. Now, as a resilient eighteen-year-old, she finally escaped from her captor.

World media went mad. Her first TV interview for ORF, the Austrian national broadcaster, aired in full in ten countries, and excerpts were shown in another one hundred and twenty.

Inspired by the case, I thought about writing a thriller that would explore the aftermath of a kidnap victim’s escape and the challenges facing them as they adjust to life outside. It felt like a sensitive issue that would need respectful handling and thorough research, so I enrolled on a PhD at the University of Birmingham.

My thesis title was: Hijacking Survivor Narratives: A Creative and Critical Study of Trauma Appropriation in Fiction. I examined topics in several disciplines, including trauma writing and post-traumatic stress disorder. However, within a month of starting my research, I read one academic article and two personal memoirs that made me rethink my approach.

(i)The article, by Fairleigh Gilmour, examined the media coverage of the ‘Kampusch’ case. Gilmour discovered that initially sympathetic reporting soon turned against the teenager. In Gilmour’s view, Natascha Kampusch received negative press because she did not present as the typical stereotype of a victim. Instead, she claimed her independence and seemed to hold a complex and contradictory attitude towards her abductor.

 Gilmour analysed 355 newspaper articles in English language newspapers from 2006 to 2010 and noted the occurrence of four story ‘angles’ to refer to Natascha Kampusch: the ‘mad’ woman (28% of coverage referred to Natascha Kampusch in this way); the ‘bad’ woman (15%); the ‘sex slave’ (19%); and the ‘virgin bride’ (16%).

The two memoirs that made me review my plans were written by Natascha Kampusch herself. (ii) In her first book, 3096 Days, she powerfully contests each of these stereotypes and (iii) in her second book, 10 Years of Freedom, published some eleven years after she escaped, she is still citing incidents of ongoing media intrusion and unwelcome attention from the public.

Sadly, since hearing what I thought was an unbelievable news story about Natascha Kampusch’s captivity and escape, I have heard of other women and girls – including Elizabeth Smart, Sarah Smith, Jaycee Dugard, Amanda Berry, Gina De Jesus, Michelle Knight, and Katy Morgan-Davies – who all suffered long-term abuse and captivity. I read memoirs by these survivors as well as the two by Natascha Kampusch. One point that several mentioned was the difficulty of readjusting afterwards under a media spotlight.

These memoirs, together with the Gilmour article, inspired me to write about how an individual's experience of crime might be rewritten by the media and social media. When we soak up true-crime headlines, we can sometimes forget about the effects of media sensationalism on the victims.

A recent example concerns the media coverage of the search for a missing Lancashire woman in January 2023.  (I won’t name her as she never had the opportunity for a right of reply to the coverage.) Social media platforms were rife with speculation and keyboard warriors flocked to the River Wyre, where she was last seen, to make videos and play at amateur sleuthing.

With their working hypothesis being undermined by the media and social media, the police divulged private details about the woman’s health, and some TV news channels invaded her family’s privacy. Although there was no survivor in this case – she had sadly drowned – the potentially traumatising effect of media intrusion on her family cannot be overlooked. 

In my thriller, An Ordinary House, a traumatised teenager finds his story sensationalised after rescue from years locked in a suburban house. As well as navigating lurid headlines and false allegations, he must suppress nightmarish memories of his ordeal to stop himself spiralling out of control. We see him face scrutiny not only from the media but also from detectives, lawyers, psychologists and social media keyboard warriors.

If you like dark thrillers, I hope you’ll give this one a go. 

Sources

(i)             Fairleigh Gilmour, ‘The Girl in the Cellar: Media Representations of Natascha Kampusch’, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 25. 2 (2013), 645-666.

(ii)           Natascha Kampusch and Heike Gronemeier, 10 Years of Freedom (Berlin: Ullstein Buchverlage, 2017).

(iii)         Natascha Kampusch and Heike Gronemeier, 3096 Days (London: Penguin, 2010)

An Ordinary House by Rae Starling (Hera Books) Out 3^rd September 2026

We lived in a house on Beech Avenue. Outside-People say we're safe now. But one of us wants to go back. Back to that house and the darkness it held. Police raid an ordinary house in a quiet suburban street and find a traumatised teenager held captive with his family. They call him a survivor, but he doesn't know what to believe. His memories don't match what his siblings and the press tell him about his home. As he struggles to make sense of his new world, he must find and face the truth. With one of his siblings set on revenge, should he forget his family, or turn from victim to killer?

You can find more information about Rae Starling and her work on her website.

 Rae Starling can also be found on X @RachelSargeant3 on Instagram @raesargeant3 and on Facebook.