The Crime Reader's Association

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	Issue 24


	Dear <<First Name>>, Kicking off the year’s first Case Files is a colourful selection of crime stories. We have England covered by ingenious plots in settings such as London, Birmingham and Manchester. Look further afield and you’ll find post-war Berlin alongside present day Afghanistan. Throw in a drama set in Ohio, America, and that’s the next few weeks’ reading taken care of. Enjoy! Chris Simms, Editor. All eight books in Chris’ highly acclaimed DI Spicer series are now available to download on Amazon. Discover more about each title on his website - www.chrissimms.info

Death Wish

Maureen Carter

A former BBC TV journalist, producer, editor and presenter, Maureen now writes two contemporary crime series set in Birmingham, where she lives. Still a self-confessed news junkie, her books explore the complex relationship between the police and the media in the sort of criminal cases that make national headlines.

Death Wish
A widow kills herself. A father jumps to his death. A teenager’s body is callously dumped in a derelict school building. Could there be links with a menacing caller who’s playing a macabre game of cat and mouse with a newspaper reporter?

With an increasing workload, Detective Sergeant Bev Morriss has more than enough on her plate without adding a side dish that’s all her own making. But Bev wants answers to crucial questions from a cop killer who’s clinging to life in a nursing home.

As soon as he gives up his secrets, Bev would happily see him dead. What Bev needs to realise is that she’s not the only one with a death wish.

Release date: October 2016 (Creative Content)

Some previous work by Maureen:
Grave Affairs
Next of Kin
Child’s Play
Death Line
Blood Money

PROFANO-METER (What's this?)

SPICY - I say, the language is a bit strong

PLATELET-COUNTER (What's this?)

UGH - Some parts get pretty squishy

Dead Man’s Hand

Mark Lock

Mark Lock lives in south Wales with his young family. His contemporary London based crime debut, Dead Man’s Hand, was selected for the WHSmith Fresh Talent promotion in 2016 and was also longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize – all in all, a very promising start!

Dead Man’s Hand
When Alice Seagrove is found dead with a name carved into her body, old memories are stirred up for DI Hal Luchewski. The name is that of a murdered sex offender and the man who killed him - convicted in Hal’s first ever murder case - has just been released from prison. Digging deeper, Hal discovers multiple links between Dr Seagrove, the recently released killer, Nino Gaudiano, and Nino’s long-missing daughter, Louisa. The detective must tread a fine line as he probes the dark secrets of several people involved in both cases.

Release date: January (Accent Press)

PROFANO-METER (What's this?)

SPICY - I say, the language is a bit strong

PLATELET-COUNTER (What's this?)

UGH - Some parts get pretty squishy

Miss Christie Regrets

Guy Fraser Sampson

Guy has lived most of his life in North London, which explains the loving detail that goes into The Hampstead Murders. And while his crime stories might be contemporary, they are written in the spirit of the Golden Age. Which, in these uncertain times, is no bad thing.

Miss Christie Regrets
The second in the Hampstead Murders series opens with a sudden death at an iconic local venue. Some of the team believe it may be connected with an unsolved murder featuring Cold War betrayals worthy of George Smiley. It soon emerges that none other than Agatha Christie herself may be the key witness – and able to provide the missing link.

With the next phase of a complicated love triangle at ‘Hampstead Nick’ playing itself out, the investigating team struggle to crack not one, but two apparently insoluble murders.

Released: January (Urbane Publications)

Some previous work by Guy:
Major Benjy (Mapp and Lucia #1)
Lucia on Holiday (Mapp and Lucia #2)
Au Reservoir (Mapp and Lucia #3)
Death in Profile (The Hampstead Murders #1)

PROFANO-METER (What's this?)

HARMLESS - As clean as a nun's conscience

PLATELET-COUNTER (What's this?)

EEK - Nothing a plaster couldn't fix


	The Daily Grind Writer: Chris Simms (Due to a last-minute cancellation, I’ve had to stand in for this feature. It’s quite strange to interview yourself.) Workspace: This is inside my writing shed. It’s seven steps from the back door of my house and – after commuting on the Northern line for several years – I always pause before opening the door and remember the misery of that journey. Take a closer look: The pot is full of pencil shavings. I write with a Blackwing – a superbly smooth pencil that an American writer tipped me off about. The shavings from each novel are all collected and, eventually, are sealed in a test tube. After a dozen novels, I have quite an impressive rack! How long do you write for each day? Until hunger forces me out of my shed and into the house. I start as early as possible – which, having four school-age kids, is rarely before 8:30 am. I stop mid-morning to grab a snack and then plough on until stomach pangs force me to stop. Usually, about 1:30 pm. How many words do you aim to get down? I’m a splurger – filling page after page with my spidery scrawl. That can be over 5,000 words if things are flowing. I’m happy with 2,500 to 3,000 though. Longhand or straight-to-screen? Longhand, in pencil, on a lined A4 pad. And I only fill the left-hand page. This leaves the opposite one free for later additions, amends and notes to myself. I find typing is too much of a temptation to produce perfectly formed sentences: it snarls up getting the story down. Do you have a time when you’re most productive? Mornings, as you’ll have gathered. After lunch, the urge vanishes. I’ll get a bit of plotting done, or some research, or I’ll start reviewing what I wrote in the morning. But new material rarely appears after I’ve eaten. An internet connection – good or bad when you’re writing? My glorified shed would make a prison cell seem luxurious. No internet connection, though I do have a PC that is only loaded with Word. No docking station, no radio and no landline. I keep a mobile with me in case school needs to get in touch, but that rarely happens. So really, it’s just me and the scratch-scratch of pencil on paper. Eventually, that’s offset by the sound of my stomach rumbling. Death Games is by Chris Simms and is available on Amazon.

A Little Death

A.J. Cross

A forensic psychologist by trade, A.J. Cross lives in Birmingham. The city is the home and workplace of Kate Hanson, her series’ protagonist. A.J. tells me everything she writes is fictional - except for the dark psychological themes! A concise and direct writing style (learned from writing numerous reports for court) adds a keen sense of pace.

A Little Death
Forensic psychologist, Dr Kate Hanson, and the Unsolved Crime Unit are facing their most challenging cold case yet: the murder of a female student. Elizabeth Williams’ remains are discovered in a field close to her Birmingham college, but they are so badly decomposed they yield little information. What Hanson needs is the vital clue which could tell her how Elizabeth died. Without it, she struggles to find the ‘why’ of Elizabeth’s death: the killer’s motivation for destroying the young student.

As the pressure mounts and Hanson’s personal life adds its own problems, she must use all of her psychological theory and expertise to challenge the twisted psyche of a monster whom she suspects is ready to kill again.

Release date: January (Severn House Publishers Ltd)

PROFANO-METER (What's this?)

MILD - The odd naughty word here and there

PLATELET-COUNTER (What's this?)

UGH - Some parts get pretty squishy

The Mean Bone In Her Body

Laura Ellen Scott

A recovering Ohioan, Laura Ellen Scott is named after Otto Preminger's classic noir, Laura, a film Roger Ebert praised for its "low motives and high style". These now form the qualities Laura strives for in her dark series, The New Royal Mysteries. The novels are set in a college/prison town in – where else? – Ohio.

The Mean Bone In Her Body
Jeaneane Lewis is a disturbed student in a crime writing program who makes a grisly discovery: a military widow and her two small children, dead in a cold garden pond, watched over by a shivering, ex-cadaver dog named Daddy. The murders go unsolved, but Jeaneane manages to publish a vivid account of her experience. Though she turns out to be a terrible student, Jeaneane makes an acceptable assistant to the most unpopular professor in the program: Elizabeth Murgatroyd.

A one-night stand with a stranger yields a shocking revelation for Murgatroyd: not only is the man she’s sharing a bed with the killer, but Jeaneane’s story is a complete fabrication. With the help of an ex-con named Crocus, the professor wants a closer look at the murders that have come to define New Royal. But first she must explore the twists and turns of Jeaneane Lewis' grim past…

Release date: December 2016 (Pandamoon Publishing)

Some previous work by Laura:
Death Wishing
The Juliet

PROFANO-METER (What's this?)

SPICY - I say, the language is a bit strong

PLATELET-COUNTER (What's this?)

UGH - Some parts get pretty squishy

Forgotten Classic

Luke McCallin talks about Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995, by Joe Sacco – a book he thinks everyone should read.

Having worked myself in Goražde – one of the five safe areas created by the UN during the Bosnian wars, and the only one of the four that survived – I know of few more interesting or addictive places. This graphic novel captures the experience of that city under siege by Bosnian Serb forces brilliantly, as well as the wider war in all its internecine fury and tragedy. Mr. Sacco's artwork and text are insightful, trenchant and acerbic (no pun intended...!). Bosnians' sense of humour shines through, such that you find yourself giggling at what seems like the most inopportune moments. But then, isn't that also part of war, and isn't that also part of literature's role to find those moments in the human experience...?

Luke McCallin’s latest novel, The Ashes of Berlin, is out now.

A Life To Kill

Matthew Hall

Matthew worked as a criminal barrister in his 20s before turning to TV script writing (beginning with episodes of Kavanagh QC). After spending ten years pandering to producers, he decided to write his first novel, The Coroner, which was published in 2009.

A Life To Kill
The last British combat soldiers in Helmand are counting the minutes until their departure for home. For their excited families in the garrison town of Highcliffe, it spells the end of an agonising six month wait.

But in the final hours, disaster strikes. Nineteen-year-old Private Pete 'Skippy' Lyons is abducted and the patrol sent out to locate him is ambushed. One killed, two injured and one missing in action. How could Private Lyons have been snatched from a heavily fortified command post? And why are officers trying to disguise what happened during the mission to save him?

The bereaved families’ only hope lies with Coroner Jenny Cooper. But she must take on the full might of the military to stop the truth being buried along with the boy soldiers.

Release date: January (Mantle).

Some previous work by Matthew:
The Coroner
The Disappeared
The Redeemed
The Flight
The Chosen Dead
The Burning

PROFANO-METER (What's this?)

SPICY - I say, the language is a bit strong

PLATELET-COUNTER (What's this?)

UGH - Some parts get pretty squishy

Ashes of Berlin

Luke McCallin

Born in Oxford, raised in Africa, and served with the UN as a humanitarian relief worker and peacekeeper in the Caucasus, the Sahel, and the Balkans: safe to say Luke has seen a lot! His writing, driven by his experiences, explores what happens to ordinary people put under extraordinary pressures of conflict and disaster.

Ashes of Berlin
1947 and former intelligence officer, Gregor Reinhardt, has been hired back onto Berlin's civilian police force. The city is divided among the victorious allied powers: tensions are growing, and the police, hobbled by internal rivalries, are all jockeying for power and influence.

When a man is found slain in a broken-down tenement, Reinhardt embarks on a gruesome investigation. It seems a serial killer is on the loose, and matters only escalate when it's discovered that one of the victims was the brother of a Nazi scientist.

Reinhardt's lonely search for the truth takes him across the divided city and embroils him in a plot involving the Western Allies, the Soviets and a group of Germans who want to the war to continue. It’s an investigation that Reinhardt soon realises could cost him everything...

Release date: December 2016 (No Exit Press)

Some previous work by Luke:
The Man from Berlin
The Pale House

PROFANO-METER (What's this?)

MILD - The odd naughty word here and there

PLATELET-COUNTER (What's this?)

UGH - Some parts get pretty squishy

Which CWA member?

Which contributor, while working as a TV reporter, ‘captured’ on film a ghost that haunted a Lincoln Bomber at RAF Cosford?

Which contributor is married to writer Zillah Bethell, whose children’s debut was one of the Telegraph’s Best Children’s Books of 2016?

Which contributor (who has also written a book on cricket), once dropped Mike Gatting at Lord’s?

Which contributor, while at a meeting of twelve professional psychologists, noted that eight of them - including herself - were left-handed. Sinister!

Which contributor once saved a dachshund from a pair of irritated emus at an alligator farm in Florida?

Which contributor took up boxing with a group of former soldiers in order to better research a plot?

Which contributor went to school in Botswana? And Zimbabwe. And then France. And also the United States and Turkey.

Which contributor cites Shakespeare as her ‘favourite crime writer’ and says her work is influenced by Arthur Conan Doyle?

Which contributor was once ranked 24^th in the world for women’s snooker, before being banned for life for bringing the game into disrepute?

Which contributor, while creeping around the chicken sheds of a battery farm in order to research a novel, was cornered by the farmer and his very aggressive Alsatian dog?

Deadly Alibi

Leigh Russell

Although Leigh taught English to secondary school students for many years, it never occurred to her to write her own book. Then, one day, a fictitious killer arrived, unbidden, to lurk in her imagination. Since then she has penned three crime series and sold almost a million copies. I think that fictitious killer deserves a drink!

Deadly Alibi
Two murder victims and a suspect whose alibi appears open to doubt...in the ninth instalment of the Geraldine Steel series, the feisty detective inspector is plunged into a double murder investigation which threatens not only her career, but her life. To further complicate matters, her previously unknown twin, Helena, turns up – and she has problems that could turn Geraldine's life toxic in more ways than one...

Release date: December 2016 (No Exit Press).

Some previous work by Leigh:
Murder Ring
Killer Plan
Fatal Act
Stop Dead
Death Bed

PROFANO-METER (What's this?)

MILD - The odd naughty word here and there

PLATELET-COUNTER (What's this?)

UGH - Some parts get pretty squishy

Lock The Door

Jane Holland

Jane currently lives in Devon and has been publishing poetry and fiction since 1995. Her latest novels are Girl Number One and Lock the Door, both dark, psychological thrillers. She also writes fiction as Victoria Lamb, Elizabeth Moss, Beth Good and Hannah Coates – which makes me tired just thinking about how she does it…

Lock The Door
What would you do if your worst nightmare came true?

Meghan Smith has always been a protective mother. Her baby son, Harry, has a life-threatening condition and is never far from her sight. But on the evening of her wedding anniversary, while she and her husband celebrate in the garden with friends, Harry disappears from his cot without trace.

In an instant, her family is exposed to interrogation, accusation and the unremitting glare of media attention. But none of it gets Meghan answers – or brings back her son.

As her life unravels and suspicion loosens her grip on sanity, Meghan begins to question everything she once took for granted. Can she trust her husband? Can she trust her friends? Can she even trust herself?

Release date: January (Thomas & Mercer)

Some previous work by Jane:
Girl Number One
Miranda
Last Bird Singing

PROFANO-METER (What's this?)

SPICY - I say, the language is a bit strong

PLATELET-COUNTER (What's this?)

UGH - Some parts get pretty squishy

The Low Down

The Mean Bone In Her Body

Writer: Laura Ellen Scott
Area: Northern Virginia, USA
Day job: English Professor, but not the sad kind

The Mean Bone In Her Body is by Laura Ellen Scott. Here, we take a look at both the writer and her forthcoming work.

So, why should we read it?
It's an edgy, psychological mystery set in New Royal, Ohio, a college/prison town where a crime writing program is linked to the deaths of a young widow and her children.

Did it take much research?
Just a little. I have "English Professor from Ohio" down cold, but my 20th century knowledge about mental illness and the corrections industry required a 21st century update.

In 3 words, how will it leave us feeling?
Disturbed, Puzzled, Satisfied – in that order.

What sparked the original idea?
When we lived in Athens, Ohio, a true college town, my husband taught Freshman Composition at a prison in nearby Chillicothe. New Royal is a mash-up of those towns.

What’s your 5-year plan?
Vanquish my foes. Buy an oysterman's cottage on Chincoteague Island and become a cat lady. Write a couple more New Royal Mysteries.

Do you vote?
Yes, indeed. I love it. They give me stickers.

Tell us your favourite type of cheese.
I would say a strong cheddar, but the last time I asked for that the sample slinger gave me something akin to a teaspoon of manure.

Which superpower would you choose, and why? Invisibility, flying or reading minds.
Flying, of course. I'd settle for hovering, though. With invisibility or mind-reading you risk finding out the truth, and that's more trouble than it's worth.

Your house is on fire. Which book do you save?
My photocopy of Oley Odin Jensen's journal. He was a relative who moved to America from Denmark in the 1850s. I'm stealing background and names for my next book.

Death Games

Chris Simms

When Waterstone’s selected Chris as one of their ‘25 Authors For The Future’, they gave him a special trophy: his first prize since primary school! His DI Spicer series follows the no-nonsense detective as he pursues the mad, bad and dangerous across Manchester’s ever-changing urban landscape.

Death Games
Manchester: an injured survivor from a motorway pile-up flees the scene, leaving behind evidence that a terror attack is being planned…

Jon Spicer, newly trained as a Specialist Firearms Officer, has joined Manchester police’s Counter Terrorism Unit. Thrown out of his previous department and demoted to Detective Constable, he is being kept in the force only because he’ll take on the most dangerous of jobs.

Iona Khan is struggling to find respect and recognition in the male-dominated Counter Terrorism Unit. Her mind might be sharp, but many of her colleagues value physical strength above anything else.

As the investigation quickly snowballs, Spicer and Khan are thrown together. The two officers must learn to trust each other – and fast. Because in this chase, any wrong move could be your last.

Release date: January (Richmond Publishing)

Some previous work by Chris:
Killing the Beasts
Shifting Skin
Savage Moon
Hell’s Fire
The Edge
Cut Adrift

PROFANO-METER (What's this?)

SPICY - I say, the language is a bit strong

PLATELET-COUNTER (What's this?)

UGH - Some parts get pretty squishy

Which CWA member? (the answers)

Which contributor, while working as a TV reporter, ‘captured’ on film a ghost that haunted a Lincoln Bomber at RAF Cosford?
Answer: Maureen Carter

Which contributor is married to writer Zillah Bethell, whose children’s debut was one of the Telegraph’s Best Children’s Books of 2016?
Answer: Mark Lock

Which contributor (who has also written a book on cricket), once dropped Mike Gatting at Lord’s?
Answer: Guy Fraser Sampson. (Happily this had no effect on the outcome of the game as he was sitting in the grandstand at the time.)

Which contributor, while at a meeting of twelve professional psychologists, noted that eight of them - including herself - were left-handed. Sinister!
Answer: A.J Cross

Which contributor once saved a dachshund from a pair of irritated emus at an alligator farm in Florida?
Answer: Laura Ellen Scott

Which contributor took up boxing with a group of former soldiers in order to better research a plot?
Answer: Matthew Hall. (He has a broken nose as a memento.)

Which contributor went to school in Botswana? And Zimbabwe. And then France. And also the United States and Turkey.
Answer: Luke McCallin

Which contributor cites Shakespeare as her ‘favourite crime writer’ and says her work is influenced by Arthur Conan Doyle?
Answer: Leigh Russell

Which contributor was once ranked 24^th in the world for women’s snooker, before being banned for life for bringing the game into disrepute?
Answer: Jane Holland

Which contributor, while creeping around the chicken sheds of a battery farm in order to research a novel, was cornered by the farmer and his very aggressive Alsatian dog?
Answer: Chris Simms

ABOUT THE EDITOR

CHRIS SIMMS

Along with nominations for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year award and Crime Writers' Association Daggers (for his novels and short stories), Chris was selected by Waterstone's as one of their '25 Authors For The Future'. He continues to feverishly scribble away in a small hut behind his house.

WWW.CHRISSIMMS.INFO

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