Death in Spigg's Wood
Written by Linda Gruchy — This is a confident and unusual debut novel: you get three types of story for the price of one. I don’t mean that in a bad way, as if the author can’t make up her mind what type of novel…
Crime rules in UK libraries
Four of the top five most borrowed books in UK libraries were by crime and thriller authors, according to Public Lending Right, the body that makes sure authors receive a payment 6.3 pence each time one of their books is taken out of a library….
Lee Child wins CWA Diamond Dagger 2013
The Crime Writers Association has elected Lee Child its Diamond Dagger winner for 2013. The creator of Jack Reacher has won the award for his outstanding body of work, and in 2012 saw A Wanted Man, his 17th Reacher novel published. At the end of…
Hammett Unwritten
Written by Owen Fitzstephen — Samuel Dashiell Hammett was the author of five novels and many short stories and is one of the most famous authors of hardboiled detective fiction. Born in 1894, Hammett left school when he was only 13 and eventually went to…
Our Facebook competition winners
We’re a week into Free Books on Facebook in February and so far hundreds of readers have enjoyed entering. It continues until the end of the month and today we’re giving away two copies of All Fall Down by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards. For…
Give me that Geiger counter!
On the radar – This week’s report is the direct result of us putting a long arm deep into the CFL mail bag and pulling out some of the most interesting new arrivals for our reviews pile. There’s a critically acclaimed anthology edited by crime…
Human Remains
Written by Elizabeth Haynes — Eleanor Rigby is one of my favourite Beatles songs, with its haunting lyric, “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” You might dismiss it as a sorrowful composition rooted in the 1960s, but that’s where you’d be…
Peter Temple's Australia
Imagine prose written by a journalist who has been cudgeled by hard-nosed editors into saying as much as possible in the fewest words. Then add the imagination of a poet and the compassionate humility of a medieval saint. Swirl these strands together and you have…