Criminal Splatterings

Fans of The Saint will be interested to know that according to Deadline.com Bridgerton start Regé-Jean Page is due to star at the helm of the re-imaging of The Saint. More information can be found here. It is due to be based in part on Leslie Charteris’ 1920s book series and subsequent 1960s UK TV series starring Roger Moore. 

Over on Crimereads.com bestselling author Darynda Jones lists her 13 must read laugh out loud mysteries. A fantastic list which can be read here. Great to see such luminaries as Janet Evanovich, Carl Hiaasen and Donald E Westlake on the list. Who would I add? Sparkle Hayter of course!

Also on Crimereads.com one of my favourite historical crime writers Lindsey Davis considers the enduring appeal of the Roman Empire as a good setting for historical mysteries. The full article can be read here. The latest book by Lindsey Davis is The Comedy of Terrors and is the ninth book in the series to feature Flavia Albia. who longstanding readers will know is the daughter of her famous character Marcus Didius Falco. 

Fans of S A Cosby will enjoy the interview with him in the Guardian. But hey, the Guardian is clearly playing catch up to those of us who having been raving about him since last year when Blacktop Wasteland was published by Headline. The Shots review of Blacktop Wasteland can be read here.

Recently the crime fiction world have been shocked by the death of Mo Hayder from Motor Neurone Disease. The Shots team play tribute to her on the blog.

If you are like me a fan of podcasts – then you will be interested to note that James Ellroy is going to host about Los Angeles crime. Of course Crimereads has the scoop.

Fans of the Grantchester which is based on the novels of James Runcie will be happy to hear that filming on season 7 has begun. More information can be found here.

There are various crime and police procedurals to look out for in the autumn due to be shown on ITV. 

The Long Call which is based on the Anne Cleeves novel of the same name and will feature Juliet Stevenson, Ben Aldridge and Martin Shaw.

Martin Clunes will reprise his role as as the former London Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton in a new season of Manhunt.

Angela Black an Hitchcockian thriller that follows one woman as she risks everything she holds dear to fight back against the man who has suppressed and tormented her for most of her adult life is due to be shown in the autumn as well.

The exact dates of transmission have yet to be announced for any of these programme.

If you missed the Four Critics, Four Continents live event then you can watch it again here. We discuss our favourite books of the first half of 2021 and cover such countries as Nigeria, The Deep South of America, Japan, Sweden and New Zealand. 

Fans of Matthew Quirk's political thrillers will be pleased to here that according to Deadline.com, Netflix are due to film a conspiracy thriller series that is based on The Night Agent that was published in 2019. More information can be found here.

If you missed Crime Time's books of the decade event then don't worry. You can rewatch it below. Also you can find the list of all the books discussed on the Crime Time site.

Go behind the scenes of Grantchester! Competition

We have a pair of tickets to giveaway to one lucky Shots reader for an event with author James Runcie (The Grantchester Mysteries) this Wednesday 13th March!  

Led by TV personality Reverend Richard Coles (BBC One The Big Painting Challenge, QI, Have I Got News For You?), the author behind ITV’s hit series will be in conversation with lead scriptwriter Daisy Coulam, to dive behind the scenes of the popular TV show.

James and Daisy will discuss the inspiration behind the stories, the challenges of adapting to screen and key moments from the last four series: From the bromance between Sidney Chambers (James Norton) and Geordie Keating (Robson Green), to tackling homosexuality and the church, and introducing the new vicar William Davenport (Tom Brittney).  

Attendees will also be treated to a preview of James’ new novel - The Road to Grantchester - a captivating prequel published by Bloomsbury on 21st March.

To be in with a chance send your names by 5:00pm to grantchestercompetition@fmcm.co.uk 

The winner will be notified.

Grantchester - behind the scenes with creator James Runcie

Go Behind the Scenes of Grantchester!

Don’t miss an opportunity to see London Book & Screen Week Ambassador James Runcie (The Grantchester Mysteries) for this special event on Wednesday 13th March!

Led by TV personality Reverend Richard Coles (BBC One The Big Painting Challenge, QI, Have I Got News For You?), the author behind ITV’s hit series will be in conversation with lead scriptwriter Daisy Coulam, to dive behind the scenes of the popular TV show.

James and Daisy will discuss the inspiration behind the stories, the challenges of adapting to screen and key moments from the last four series: From the bromance between Sidney Chambers (James Norton) and Geordie Keating (Robson Green), to tackling homosexuality and the church, and introducing the new vicar William Davenport (Tom Brittney).

Attendees will also be treated to a preview of James’ new novel - The Road to Grantchester - a captivating prequel published by Bloomsbury on 21st March.

Ticket information can be found here.

Books to Look Forward to from Bloomsbury Publishing

January 2019

The Flower Girls is by Alice-Clark Platts.  Three children went out to play, only two came back. The Flower Girls. Laurel and Primrose. One convicted of murder, the other given a new identity. Now, nineteen years later, another child has gone missing. And the Flower Girls are about to hit the headlines all over again...

February 2019

A journalist must follow the clues, no matter how far that takes her. Casey Benedict, star reporter at the Post, has infiltrated the lives and exposed the lies of countless politicians and power players. Using her network of contacts, Casey is always on the search for the next big story, no matter how much danger this might place her in, no matter what cost emotionally. Tipped off by an overheard conversation at an exclusive London nightclub, she begins to investigate the apparent suicide of a wealthy young British man, whose death has left his fiancee and family devastated. Casey's determined hunt for the truth will take her from the glitz of St-Tropez to the deserts of Libya and on to the very darkest corners of the human mind.  To The Lions is by Holly Watt.

March 2019

The Road to Granchester by James Runcie is the captivating prequel to the treasured Grantchester series follows the life, loves and losses of a young Sidney Chambers in post-war London It is 1938, and eighteen-year-old Sidney Chambers is dancing the quickstep with Amanda Kendall at her brother Robert's birthday party at the Caledonian Club. No one can believe, on this golden evening, that there could ever be another war. Returning to London seven years later, Sidney has gained a Military Cross, and lost his best friend on the battlefields of Italy. The carefree youth that he and his friends were promised has been blown apart, just like the rest of the world - and Sidney, carrying a terrible, secret guilt, must decide what to do with the rest of his life. But he has heard a call: constant, though quiet, and growing ever more persistent. To the incredulity of his family and the derision of his friends - the irrepressible actor Freddie, and the beautiful, spiky Amanda - Sidney must now negotiate his path to God: the course of which, much like true love, never runs smooth. 

The thrilling true story of Richard Sorge - the man John le Carre called `the spy to end spies', and whose actions turned the tide of the Second World War Richard Sorge was a man with two homelands. Born of a German father and a Russian mother in Baku in 1895, he moved in a world of shifting alliances and infinite possibility. A member of the angry and deluded generation who found new, radical faiths after their experiences on the battlefields of the First World War, Sorge became a fanatical communist - and the Soviet Union's most formidable spy. Like many great spies, Sorge was an effortless seducer, combining charm with ruthless manipulation. He did not have to go undercover to find out closely guarded state secrets - his victims willingly shared them. As a foreign correspondent, he infiltrated and influenced the highest echelons of German, Chinese and Japanese society in the years leading up to and including the Second World War. His intelligence regarding Operation Barbarossa and Japanese intentions not to invade Siberia in 1941 proved pivotal to the Soviet counteroffensive in the Battle of Moscow, which in turn determined the outcome of the war. Never before has Sorge's story been told from the Russian side as well as the German and Japanese.  An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent is by Owen Matthews.

April 2019

Impossible Causes is by Julie Mayhew. Four elements. Four seasons. Four points on the compass. Four teenage girls. And one body. Black-haired, pure islander, Britta. The alpha female of the so-called Eldest Girls. 'Half-blood' Jade-Marie, her missionary father long drowned. Blonde, angelic looking Anna - the moral compass of the trio. And then red-headed Viola. Viola, the newcomer to the island, escaping tragedy and desperate to belong. Viola, who turns three girls into four and completes the set. Viola, who finds the man's body, lying in the stone circle. Viola, who has watched and waited for her opportunity to become one of the inner circle, whatever it takes. In Julie Mayhew's mesmerising and compelling thriller, a remote and deeply religious island with a history of paganism is riven when a man is found dead. As rumours spread and tensions rise, and fog descends, sealing the island off from the mainland, the four teenage girls of Lark Island find themselves accused of witchcraft - and murder.

Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps is by Ursula Buchan.  John Buchan's name is known across the world for The Thirty-Nine Steps. In the past one hundred years the classic thriller has never been out of print and has inspired numerous adaptations for film, television, radio and stage, beginning with the celebrated version by Alfred Hitchcock. Yet there was vastly more to `JB'. He wrote more than a hundred books, fiction and non-fiction and about a thousand articles for newspapers and magazines. He was a scholar, antiquarian, barrister, colonial administrator, journal editor, literary critic, publisher, war correspondent, director of wartime propaganda, member of parliament and imperial proconsul - given a state funeral when he died, a deeply admired and loved Governor-General of Canada. His teenage years in Glasgow's Gorbals, where his father was the Free Church minister, contributed to his ease with shepherds and ambassadors, fur-trappers and prime ministers. His improbable marriage to a member of the aristocratic Grosvenor family means that this account of his life contains, at its heart, an enduring love story.

May 2019

It's been a year since Leo Stanhope lost the woman he loved, and came closing to losing his own life. Now, more than ever, he is determined to keep his head down and stay safe, without risking those he holds dear. But Leo's hopes for peace and security are shattered when the police unexpectedly arrive at his lodgings: a woman has been found murdered at a club for anarchists, and Leo's address is in her purse. When Leo is taken to the club by the police, he is shocked to discover there a man from his past, a man who knows Leo's birth identity. And if Leo does not provide him with an alibi for the night of the woman's killing, he is going to share this information with the authorities. If Leo's true identity is unmasked, he will be thrown into an asylum, but if he lies... will he be protecting a murderer?  The Anarchists’ Club is by Alex Reeve.

Books to Look Forward to from Bloomsbury Publishing

January 2017

The River at Night is by Erica Ferencik. A thought came to me that I couldn't force away: What we are wearing is how we'll be identified out in the wilderness.' Win Allen doesn't want an adventure. After a miserable divorce and the death of her beloved brother, she just wants to spend some time with her three best friends, far away from her soul-crushing job. But athletic, energetic Pia has other plans. Plans for an adrenaline-raising, breath-taking, white-water rafting trip in the Maine wilderness. Five thousand square miles of remote countryside. Just mountains, rivers and fresh air. No phone coverage. No people. No help...

February 2017

"Esteban refilled our glasses. 'We have a phrase in Spanish. 'Mil Cortes'. 'A thousand cuts,' I

said, and Esteban nodded. 'Small acts of resistance. We may be few, but together we can change the world. To the 'Mil Cortes'. Salud.'" In a place like Gibraltar, the troubles of the past are never far from the surface. Just one scratch and the old poisons bleed through. What could link a catastrophic dockyard bomb in the Second World War to a series of shocking murders in the present day? Is retribution finally being served? Or is a ruthless killer trying to cover his tracks? When a routine court case takes a sinister turn, defence lawyer Spike Sanguinetti starts asking dangerous questions that nobody seems to want answered. Soon, it's not just the truth that's at stake: it is everything and everyone that Spike holds precious. As the sun beats relentlessly down, crimes of the past and present collide, relationships are tested and long-buried secrets exposed. Who can Spike trust? And where do his own loyalties lie? A Thousand Cuts is by Thomas Mogford.

March 2017

Arthur & Sherlock: Conan Doyle and the Creation of Holmes is by Michael Sims.  Even the most learned of Baker Street Irregulars will enjoy Sims' look at the making of Sherlock Holmes' Kirkus. As a young medical student at the University of Edinburgh, Arthur Conan Doyle studied under the vigilant eye of Dr Joseph Bell. He observed as Dr Bell identified a patient's occupation, hometown and ailments both imagined and genuine from the smallest details of dress, gait and speech. Although Doyle was training to be a surgeon, he was meanwhile cultivating essential knowledge that would help him to develop and define the art of the detective novel. From Doyle's early days surrounded by poverty and violence, to his escape to University and finally to his first days as a surgeon in his own practice, acclaimed author Michael Sims traces the circuitous yet inevitable development of Arthur Conan Doyle as the father of the modern mystery, whose most famous creation is still the most well-known and well-loved of the canon's many members. Through Sims's deft analysis of Doyle's childhood and adult life, the incomparable Sherlock Holmes emerges as a product of Doyle's varied lessons in the classroom and professional life. Building on the traditions of Edgar Allan Poe, Emile Gaboriau, and even Voltaire, Doyle's new detective is not just a skilful translator of clues, but a veritable superhero of the mind in the tradition of his most esteemed teacher, Dr Joseph Bell. Sims's Arthur is just as vivid Doyle's own Sherlock Holmes in this enthralling biography of the man behind the most famous detective of all time.

April 2017

The Lake is by Lotte Hammer and Søren Hammer.  Everything comes with a price.  The skeleton of a young woman is discovered, tied to a stone, in a lake deep in the Danish countryside. The woman's identity is a mystery; no one matching her description has been reported missing...After months of fruitless investigation by the local police force, a media scandal brings the case to nationwide attention and is quickly handed over to Konrad Simonsen and his team from the Copenhagen Police force. It soon becomes clear that this unknown woman is the key to a sinister world of human trafficking, prostitution and violence. A world where everything comes with a price and no mistake goes unpunished.

May 2017

Sidney Chambers and the Persistence of Love is by James Runcie.  It is May 1971 and the Cambridgeshire countryside is bursting into summer. Archdeacon Sidney Chambers is walking in a bluebell wood with his daughter Anna and their ageing Labrador, Byron, when they stumble upon a body. Thrust into another murder investigation, Sidney discovers a world of hippies, folk music and psychedelic plants, where permissive behaviour seems to hide something darker. This is the first of many disturbing secrets that Sidney unearths beneath the deceptively tranquil surface of the Diocese of Ely: a celebrated photographer is accused of rape; a priceless religious text vanishes from a Cambridge college; the authentication of a lost masterpiece proves a slippery business; and Sidney's own nephew goes missing. Endeavouring to fit his clerical duties in around the demands of sleuthing, Sidney continues to reflect on the divine mysteries of love, life and faith, while wrestling with the earthly problems of parish scandals, an alarmingly progressive new secretary, the challenges of parenthood, and a great loss.

The Violated is by Bill Pronzini. In Echo Park, in the small town of Santa Rita, California, the mutilated body of Martin Torrey is found by two passersby. A registered sex offender, Torrey has been a suspect in a string of recent rapes, and instant suspicion for his murder falls on the relatives and friends of the women attacked. Police chief Griffin Kells and detective Robert Ortiz are under increasing pressure from the public and from a mayor demanding results in a case that has no easy solution. Pronzini cleverly unfolds the case through alternating perspectives--Martin Torrey's wife, caught between her grief and the fear her husband was guilty; the outraged husbands of the women violated; the enterprising editor of the local paper; the mayor concerned most with his own ratings; the detectives, often spinning in circles--until a surprising break leads to a completely unexpected conclusion.

June 2017

Party Girls Die in Pearls is by Plum Sykes.  Brideshead, bon-bons, cucumber sandwiches - and now a murder In the decadent world of Oxford University, c.1985, Pimms, punting and

ball gowns are de rigeur. Ursula Flowerbutton, a studious country girl, arrives for her first term, anticipating nothing more sinister than days spent poring over history books - and, perhaps, an invitation to a ball. But when she discovers a body, Ursula is catapulted into a murder investigation. Determined to bag her first scoop for the famous student newspaper Cherwell, Ursula enlists the help of glamorous American student Nancy Feingold to unravel the case. While navigating a whirl of black-tie parties and secret dining societies, the girls discover a surfeit of suspects. From broken-hearted boyfriends to snobby Sloanes, lovelorn librarians to dishy dons, none can be presumed innocent.

Books to Look Forward to From Bloomsbury

Helen and Ellie are identical twins - like two peas in a pod, everyone says. The girls know this isn't true, though: Helen is the leader and Ellie the follower. Until they decide to swap places: just for fun, and just for one day. But Ellie refuses to swap back...And so begins a nightmare from which Helen cannot wake up. Her toys, her clothes, her friends, her glowing record at school, the favour of her mother and the future she had dreamed of are all gone to a sister who blossoms in the approval that used to belong to Helen. And as the years pass, she loses not only her memory of that day but also herself - until eventually only 'Smudge' is left. Twenty-five years later, Smudge receives a call from out of the blue. It threatens to pull her back into her sister's dangerous orbit, but if this is her only chance to face the past, how can she resist? Beside Myself is a compulsive and darkly brilliant psychological thriller by Ann Morgan and is about family and identity - what makes us who we are and how very fragile it can be and is due to be published in January 2016. 

Sidney Chambers and the Dangers of Temptation is by James Runcie and is due to be published in June 2016. It's the summer of love in late 1960s England. The Apollo 11 astronauts are preparing to land on the moon, the war in Biafra dominates the news and Basil D'Oliveira has just been dropped from the England cricket team before a test series in apartheid South Africa. In the midst of all this change, Sidney Chambers, the loveable English clergyman continues his amateur sleuthing investigations. A bewitching divorcee enlists Sidney's help in convincing her son to leave a hippy commune; at a soiree on Grantchester Meadows during May Week celebrations a student is divested of a family heirloom; Amanda's marriage runs into trouble; Sidney and Hildegard holiday behind the Iron Curtain; Mrs Maguire's husband returns from the dead and an arson attack in Cambridge leads Sidney to uncover a cruel case of blackmail involving his former curate. In the rare gaps between church and crime, Sidney struggles with a persistent case of toothache, has his first flutter at the Newmarket races and witnesses the creation of a classic rock song.

Jonathan is a private investigator in a decaying eastern European city, consumed by his

work and his failing marriage. Approached one day by an elderly couple, he is presented with a faded photograph of their daughter, missing for nearly two decades. Troubled by the image of the little girl, who was the same age when she vanished as his own daughter is now - he is compelled to find her. But one night, soon after taking on the case, as he walks across the bridge spanning the river that divides the city, he encounters a young woman crouched at the foot of a stone angel - a woman who suddenly leaps into the icy water below. Without thinking, Jonathan plunges after her, and is soon drawn into her ghostly world of confusion, coincidence and intrigue, and the city he thought he knew turns strange and threatening. Haunting and deeply moving, The Drowned Detective is an intoxicating, atmospheric exploration of relationships, lies and betrayal and is due to be published in February 2016.

The death of a postman, Jorgen Kramer Nielsen, looks like a straightforward accident, the prefect case for Detective Inspector Konrad Simonsen to return to after a severe heart attack.  However, as new forensic evidence comes to light, the facts of Nielsen’s life unravel.  The postman is linked to the disappearance of an English teenager almost 40 years previously and as Simonsen and his team try to pull all of the threads together it becomes clear that events leading to his death were more sinister than anyone imagined.  The Vanished is by Lotte Hammer and Søren Hammer and is due to be published in March 2016.

How far would you go to protect the people you love?  When young painter Marianne Glass is found dead in her snow covered Oxford garden, Rowan Winter, her once closest friend, knows it wasn’t an accident.  Marianne had paralysing vertigo: she would never have gone so close to the roof edge.  Rowan’s pursuit of the truth about her old friend’s death takes her into every corner of her life, from bohemian East London to the professional art world in which Marianne had made her name.  Rowan is determined to find out what really happened – but some secrets are better left uncovered, and others are lethal.  Keep You Close is by Lucie Whitehouse and is due to be published in April 2016. 

Terrorists are nothing new.  The year is 1368 and Granada is under threat from violent extremists.  Enter Abu Abdallah, the penniless globetrotter who has wives and concubines on three continents and is still searching for the right woman, and his West African slave Sinan, the one with the brawn, the brains, the looks – and demons from the past.  Granada’s labyrinthine palace –citadel, Alhambra, is nearing its triumphant completion.  But Sinan and Abu Abdallah are drawn to a darker maze, where baffling mysteries threaten to ruin the balance of Muslim-Christian power in Spain.  Alhambra is by Tim Mackintosh-Smith and is due to be published in March 2016. 

Early in the morning of Monday 8 July 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes and his twelve-year-old brother Nattie set out from their small, yellow brick terraced house in east London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, leaving the boys and their mother at home for the summer. Over the next ten days Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning family valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. During this time nobody saw or heard from their mother, though the boys told neighbours she was visiting relatives. As the sun beat down on the Coombes house, an awful smell began to emanate from the building. When the police were finally called to investigate, what they found in one of the bedrooms sent the press into a frenzy of horror and alarm, and Robert and Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that echoed the outrageous plots of the 'penny dreadful' novels that Robert loved to read.  The Wicked Boy is by Kate Summerscale and is due to be published in May 2016.

Mourad Hafiz appears to have dropped out of university and disappeared. Engaged by his family to try and find him, Makana comes to believe that the Hafiz boy became involved in some kind of political activity just prior to his disappearance. But before he can discover more, the investigation is sidetracked: a severed head turns up on the riverbank next to his home, and Makana finds himself drawn into ethnic rivalry and gang war among young men from South Sudan. The trail leads from a church in the slums and the benevolent work of the larger-than-life Rev. Preston Corbis and sister Liz to the enigmatic Ihsan Qaddus and the Hesira Institute.  The fifth installment of this acclaimed series is set in Egypt in December 2005. While Cairo is torn by the protests by South Sudanese refugees demanding their rights, President Mubarak has just been re-elected by a dubious 88 percent majority in the country's first multi-party elections. In response to what appears to be flagrant election-rigging, there are early stirrings of organized political opposition to the regime. Change is afoot and Makana is in danger of being swept away in the seismic shifts of his adopted nation. City of Jackals is by Parker Bilal and is due to be published in July 2016.