HEADS TOGETHER: The Thong Episode. The recommended crime titles for October, festivals and podcasts, 2nd novels, queens of crime and the thong. BARRY FORSHAW is the editor of Crime Time, author of several books on film and crime fiction and the Financial Times Crime Fiction Critic. His latest book SIMENON: the Man, the Books, the Films published by Oldcastle Books is a must read for serious followers of crime fiction. VICTORIA SELMAN is the bestselling author of the Ziba MacKenzie serial killer ...
Oct 24, 2022•32 min
Season 3, Episode 3 - SELF PUBLISHING with ZOE SHARP (The Last Time She Died) & DAVID PENNY (A Death of Promise). The why and How of self-publishing, the benefits and pitfalls, how do you go about marketing your books, what works & what doesn't, snobbery in the publishing industry, Amazon, Ian Rankin and advertising in a public toilet. VICTORIA SELMAN SundayTimes bestselling author of Truly Darkly Deeply Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS Website for news and giveaways: http://w...
Oct 18, 2022•43 min
ANTONY JOHNSTON, (THE COLDEST CITY - ATOMIC BLONDE) chats to Paul Burke about the third novel in the Brigitte Sharp series THE PATRIOS NETWORK . Writing screenplays, games, comics and novels. The making of Atomic Blonde (fr. The Coldest City). Classic Cold War spy fiction and Berlin. THE PATRIOS NETWORK : When a renegade British officer steals plans for a high-tech weapon that could plunge whole cities into darkness, elite MI6 hacker Brigitte Sharp is sent to get them back. But her mission goes ...
Oct 17, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Season 3, episode 3: CHARLOTTE PHILBY (EDITH & KIM) & LUKE JENNINGS (KILLING EVE, KILLING EVE: NO TOMORROW). A woman at the centre of the spy story, the PHILBY legacy, Edith Tudor Hart, Guy Burgess, Villanelle the psychopathic killer & brilliant terrible women. VICTORIA SELMAN SundayTimes bestselling author of Truly Darkly Deeply Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com Twitter: @VictoriaSelman We love to hear fro...
Oct 04, 2022•42 min
TREVOR WOOD chats to Paul Burke about his latest novel just out in paperback, DEAD END STREET , characters Jimmy, Deano and Gadge, PTSD and homelessness, The People's Kitchen, writing a new stand alone novel, the writer's journey and the editor who wanted Dog to have a girlfriend. DEAD END STREET : A group of vigilantes are carrying out a campaign of harassment against the homeless, hounding them both verbally and physically to get them off the streets. Jimmy Mullen is approached by his friend G...
Sep 29, 2022•1 hr 12 min
JOHN BROWNLOW chats to Paul Burke about SEVENTEEN : LAST MAN STANDING , film script sitting, SEVENTEEN : LAST MAN STANDING : YOU'LL NEVER KNOW MY NAME. BUT YOU WON'T FORGET MY NUMBER. Behind the events you know are the killers you don't. When diplomacy fails, we're the ones who gear up. Officially we don't exist, but every government in the world uses our services. We've been saving the world, and your ass, for 100 years. Sixteen people have done this job before me. I am 17. The most feared assa...
Sep 24, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Series 3, Episode 2: VAL McDERMID ( 1989 ) & RUTH WARE ( The It Girl ) chat to Victoria Selman about HOOKING THE READER and KEEPING THEM INTERESTED, publishing then and now, Agatha Christie, the character in your mind and The Stasi Poetry Circle (Philip Oltermann). VICTORIA SELMAN SundayTimes bestselling author of Truly Darkly Deeply Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com Twitter: @VictoriaSelman We love to hear from ou...
Sep 20, 2022•45 min
ADAM HAMDY chats to Paul Burke about THE OTHER SIDE OF NIGHT , writing an original novel, the emotional journey you take the reader on, how characters convey meaning in a story, speculative thrillers, film and TV adaptation, page turning excitement and poetry. The Other Side of Night : This is David Asha's story, and that of his son, his wife and also, his best friend. You may think you know what this story is, but it is more, much more. Its a story of love and loss, lies and suspicion, secrets ...
Sep 14, 2022•1 hr
DAVID LAGERCRANTZ chats to Craig Sisterson about Dark Music (translated by Ian Giles), the influence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a contemporary Holmes and Watson, the social novel, what is genius and not having the luxury to be weak (class and privilege). DARK MUSIC The launch of a new series inspired by Sherlock Holmes. A murder investigation brings together two unlikely allies in a race to uncover a shadowy international conspiracy. Professor Hans Rekke: born into a wealthy Stockholm family, world ...
Sep 11, 2022•47 min
Season 3, episode 1 . DAVID BALDACCI (DREAM TOWN) & LINWOOD BARCLAY (TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY) On The Sofa With Victoria. Thrillers: Two legends of the crime writing chat thrillers with Victoria. Learning from film, momentum, suspense vs shock, , chapter breaks, lean & mean-couch potato writing, the competition, and feeling sorry for Dan Brown. VICTORIA SELMAN SundayTimes bestselling author of Truly Darkly Deeply Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS Website for news and giveaways: ht...
Sep 06, 2022•36 min
THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY BLOODY SCOTLAND 15th - 18th September, 2022. A CRIME TIME FM SPECIAL Victoria Selman and Paul Burke chat to Festival Director BOB MCDEVITT and Scottish crime writers SARAH SMITH (HEAR NO EVIL) & ABIR MUKHERJEE (WYNDHAM & BANERJEE series), about what makes Bloody Scotland so special, the McIlvanney Prize and Scottish Debut Novel Awards, what it takes to put on a successful hybrid festival, a star studded cast which includes John Connolly, Dean Koontz, Sir Ian Rankin, ...
Sep 04, 2022•36 min
LAURA WILSON chats to Paul Burke about her new YA novel MONOCHROME , Grace and the teenage world, Climate change, achromatopsia, writing with a renewed purpose & drunk tank pink. MONOCHROME In a world drained of colour, nothing is black and white. Early one morning, Grace wakes to find herself staring at an ashen sunrise in ominous grey skies. It's like watching a disaster movie, though her family don't seem to think anything is wrong. Grace is one of a handful of people in the country who a...
Sep 03, 2022•59 min
JOHN VERCHER chats to Paul Burke about his new novel AFTER THE LIGHTS GO OUT , identity, racism, Mixed Marshal Arts, mental health - CTE/Alzheimer's and carers, noir/tragedy and propulsive storytelling, and fear for the dog (Loki) AFTER THE LIGHTS GO OUT : How do you save yourself when you’re the person you trust least of all? Xavier "Scarecrow" Wallace is a biracial Black MMA fighter on the wrong side of thirty, who is facing the comeback fight of his life. He is also losing his battle with pug...
Sep 02, 2022•1 hr
Paul Burke takes a look at the latest crime fiction for August. From a top notch comedy thriller-come-meta-fiction to a slice of southern rural noir, from a dysfunctional family drama to a tense heist, and from the US and Mexico to the UK with brief spells in Crete and Dublin. Books reviewed: Anthony Horowitz. A Twist of the Knife top cosy /comedy Gabino Iglesias The Devil Takes You Home top noir Jean Hanff Korelitz The Latecomer top drama John Trinian The Big Grab & The Savage Breast Wiley ...
Sep 01, 2022•23 min
JANET EVANOVICH chats to Paul Burke about THE RECOVERY AGENT , GAME ON, Stephanie Plum and Gabriela Rose, humour and sex, The Mummy, Midnight Run, Teslas and having a mouth like a truck driver. THE RECOVERY AGENT Lost something? Gabriela Rose knows how to get it back. As a recovery agent, she’s hired by individuals and companies seeking lost treasures, stolen heirlooms, or missing assets of any kind. She’s reliable, cool under pressure, and well trained in weapons of all types. But Gabriela’s la...
Aug 29, 2022•1 hr
BEGINNINGS, MIDDLES & ENDS: An On The Sofa With Victoria Special. PART 3: ENDINGS Victoria Selman chats to Dominic Nolan about novel endings. The importance of the twist in a crime novel, why first sentences stand out more than last, or do they/, what makes a satisfying ending? DOMINIC NOLAN is the British the author of 3 crime fictions. His latest VINE STREET is a superb London set historical mystery, it is available now in paperback. VICTORIA SELMAN SundayTimes bestselling author of Truly ...
Aug 25, 2022•33 min
BEGINNINGS, MIDDLES & ENDS: An On The Sofa With Victoria Special. PART 2: MIDDLES Victoria Selman chats to Dominic Nolan about the middle of the novel. Why are middles challenging for authors? What do readers want? What are the tools that help make a good middle? DOMINIC NOLAN is the British the author of 3 crime fictions. His latest VINE STREET is a superb London set historical mystery, it is available now in paperback. VICTORIA SELMAN SundayTimes bestselling author of Truly Darkly Deeply A...
Aug 24, 2022•28 min
BEGINNINGS, MIDDLES & ENDS: An On The Sofa With Victoria Special. PART 1: BEGINNINGS Victoria Selman chats to Dominic Nolan about novel openings, what makes a great opening, how to hook your readers and getting a character in. DOMINIC NOLAN is the British the author of 3 crime fictions. His latest VINE STREET is a superb London set historical mystery, it is available now in paperback. VICTORIA SELMAN SundayTimes bestselling author of Truly Darkly Deeply Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3x...
Aug 23, 2022•35 min
SHERRYL CLARK chats to Paul Burke about her new Judi Westerholme novel MAD, BAD AND DEAD . Melbourne, poetry, structure and pace, the innocents caught up in crime, keeping it grounded and Finland. MAD, BAD AND DEAD : A dead employee. A missing child. Anonymous phone calls in the dead of night. Judi Westerholme's troubles aren't over yet... Already struggling to juggle co-running Candlebark's pub/bistro along with her new childcare responsibilities, Judi does not need her life to become any more ...
Aug 20, 2022•56 min
MARK ELLIS chats to Paul Burke about the latest Frank Merlin mystery DEAD IN THE WATER , wartime London, the American army in the UK, what makes good historical writing and the richest man in the world at the time Calouste Gulbenkian. DEAD IN THE WATER : Summer, 1942. The Second World War rages on but Britain now faces the Nazi threat with America at its side. In a bombed-out London swarming with gangsters and spies, DCI Frank Merlin continues his battle against rampant wartime crime. A mangled ...
Aug 18, 2022•56 min
TOM VAUGHAN MACAULAY chats to Paul Burke about his new novel COUNTDOWN TO A KILLING , meta-fiction, writing with a full time career as a lawyer, the modern epistolary novel and quirky characters. COUNTDOWN TO A KILLING : Wen Li, an anxious young woman who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, is tormented by an incessant fear that she might have homicidal impulses. Wen falls for her self-absorbed colleague, Lomax Clipper, who is writing a whodunnit in his spare time. Lomax is pining for It...
Aug 15, 2022•37 min
TOXIC FRIENDSHIPS: In the season 2 finale POLLY PHILLIPS (THE REUNION), HARRIET TYCE (IT ENDS AT MIDNIGHT), TM LOGAN (THE CURFEW), discuss bringing out the worst in each other, long held resentments, trigger events, gaslighting, crabs in a bucket and the white sock incident (wince). VICTORIA SELMAN SundayTimes bestselling author of Truly Darkly Deeply Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com Twitter: @VictoriaSelman We love t...
Aug 09, 2022•48 min
BEVERLEY JONES , aka B.E. Jones, chats to Paul Burke about her novels The Beach House and The Wilderness and the Firebird Pictures/Amazon Prime adaptation of The Wilderness starring Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson Cohen . Shout outs for Ferndale and Storyville Books in Pontypridd. THE BEACH HOUSE : When Grace Jensen returns to her home one day, she finds a body in a pool of blood and a menacing gift left for her. The community of Lookout Beach is shocked by such a brutal intrusion in their clos...
Aug 06, 2022•51 min
HEADS TOGETHER - the WE ARE NO LONGER REAL PEOPLE Episode - with a special feature on St. Hilda's Crime Fiction Weekend . Paul Burke chats to Sarah Hilary about this unique event 12th-14th August in Oxford. BOOKING for ST. HILDA'S For general details and full programme here To attend in person here To join in online here SARAH HILARY is a best selling author and winner of the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel Of The Year Award. Her stand alone psychological novel FRAGILE was published in 2021....
Aug 01, 2022•50 min
SCOTT BLACKBURN chats to Paul Burke about his Southern Rural Noir IT DIES WITH YOU character, influences, the amazing Mountainview MFA (JOHN VERCHER, TED FLANAGAN), picking an agent, getting out there and selling your book. IT DIES WITH YOU For nearly a decade, twenty-nine-year-old Hudson Miller has made his living in the boxing ring, but a post-fight brawl threatens to derail his career. Desperate for money, Hudson takes a gig as a bouncer at a dive bar. That's when life delivers him another ho...
Jul 31, 2022•1 hr 6 min
BARRY FORSHAW chats to Paul Burke about SIMENON: THE MAN, THE BOOKS, THE FILMS . A 21st Century re-examination of SIMENON, Maigret and the Romans Durs novels, a wide ranging discussion of everything from Simenon's place in French literature to Robert Newton and Spartacus. SIMENON: THE MAN, THE BOOKS, THE FILMS The legendary Georges Simenon was the most successful and influential writer of crime fiction in a language other than English; Andre Gide called him 'the greatest French novelist of our t...
Jul 26, 2022•55 min
THE ORION INCIDENT ROOM ON CRIME TIME FM FEATURING: CATE QUINN BLOOD SISTERS JOE IDE THE GOODBYE COAST OSCAR DE MURIEL THE SIGN OF THE DEVIL & MJ ARLIDGE CAT AND MOUSE Four top Orion authors discuss their latest novels with Paul Burke as the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writers Festival gets under way. Produced by Junkyard Dog Music courtesy of Southgate and Leigh Crime Time Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. Produced by Junkyard Dog ...
Jul 23, 2022•1 hr 20 min
Paul Burke takes a look at the latest crime fiction for July. From surprisingly entertaining financial thriller to the daring wartime rescue of a cow, via a Californian sniper, a Japanese locked room, a couple of serial killers with a plan and a narcissistic pensioner. With apologies for any mispronunciations of Japanese, Spanish, French or even English! THE FRACTURED TREE Justin Wheatley 7/10 THE ACCOMPLICE Steve Cavanagh 9.5 LISTEN TO ME Tess Gerritsen. 8 ALL I SAID WAS TRUE Imran Mahmood 8 TH...
Jul 22, 2022•24 min
KARIN SLAUGHTER chats to Craig Sisterson about her new novel GIRL FORGOTTEN , twenty years of crime writing, the Netflix series of PIECES OF HER, crime fiction as a perfect vehicle for writing about social issues, particularly violence against women, male authors who write strong female characters & the Aussie series Neighbours & British student audience. GIRL FORGOTTEN : A girl with a secret… Longbill Beach, 1982. Emily Vaughn gets ready for prom night, the highlight of any high school ...
Jul 19, 2022•53 min
GORDON KERR author of BRITISH TRAITORS : Betrayal & Treachery in the Twentieth Century chats to Paul Burke about soy hysteria pre-WWI, the men and women who betrayed their country for money and ideology, The Cambridge spies, Lord Haw Haw and George Blake, not to mention his novel A Partisan Heart. BRITISH TRAITORS Capital punishment for murder was suspended in Great Britain in 1965, an Act finally made permanent in 1969, but remained as the punishment for treason until as recently as 1998, d...
Jul 15, 2022•50 min
