Our story
Crime Fiction Lover was set in 2011 up by two journalists who love reading crime stories. We’re a micro business driven by a passion for everything from atmospheric noir to mystery thrillers to police procedurals and more. Over the years, we’ve grown alongside the rise of Kindle, eBooks and iBooks, discovering great new reads and sharing them with our readers. Of course, we will never overlook traditional print – because there’s nothing like the feel and smell of a freshly printed book.
Our aim is to bring you helpful and concise articles, covering as much of the genre as we can. From Scandinavian crime fiction through to hardboiled detectives, and from cutting edge contemporary right back to the Golden Age, wherever there’s a mystery novel, we’re interested. We can’t cover every new release, but we do our best, and try to provide fellow fans of the genre with the best impartial buying advice on the internet.
At Crime Fiction Lover, we love working with people across the industry, from the biggest publishing houses and TV production companies to the indie authors and small presses whose fresh ideas ensure the genre is fresh and ever-changing.
Since setting up, we’ve been joined by a team of like-minded experts in the genre, who make fantastic contributions to the website week in, week out.
Meet the team
crimefictionlover
A co-founder of the site, Garrick Webster is a copywriter, editor and journalist in fields as varied as design and illustration, office décor, typography and spirits branding. He enjoys reading all forms of crime fiction and is constantly watching crime shows, but what he really loves is discovering new authors and seeing them progress to become household names. Great storytelling is what he looks for most, and he can’t resist a good literary crime novel.
Link to articles by crimefictionlover
DeathBecomesHer
An experienced journalist and former Press Association reporter, Sandra Mangan has worked for newspapers across the North of England. As well as reviewing and feature writing, she is our eagle-eyed subeditor and also proofs manuscripts for authors and publishers. Sandra loves reading works by Michael Connelly, Elly Griffiths, Ann Cleeves, MW Craven and Ian Rankin.
Link to articles by DeathBecomesHer
RoughJustice
Mike Parker joined the Crime Fiction Lover team shortly after the site was established and has been a stalwart writer for us ever since. By day he works in older people’s mental health with special interests in crisis resolution and medical education. Whenever he has a moment, you’ll catch him reading all things noir. Contemporary noir. Classic noir. Rural noir. You get the idea. Now and again, he also enjoys a crime-horror crossover. Mike’s favourite authors include Ross Macdonald, Peter Temple and Joe R Lansdale.
Link to articles by RoughJustice
Vicki Weisfeld
Based in the Northeast of the United States, Vicki worked in the empirical world of life sciences before her imagination took over and she started writing crime fiction. She has had more than 40 short stories published in various magazines and anthologies, and is the author of the novel Architect of Courage. A regular reviewer on Crime Fiction Lover, Vicki’s favourites include Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos and Adrian McKinty. She has a wonderful literary website here.
Link to articles by Vicki Weisfeld
Sonja van der Westhuizen
Sonja is our correspondent in Cape Town, South Africa, reading crime fiction in English and Afrikaans. As such, we rely on her for the inside track on African crime fiction, however her reading roves far and wide. She’ll read anything with a dead body in it, bonus points if it’s Japanese crime fiction, Nordic noir or, more recently, horror. She particularly enjoys translated fiction, whether literary or crime oriented. In addition to reviewing for Crime Fiction Lover, she writes for magazines and newspapers in South Africa, her own review site and is a Ngaio Marsh Awards judge. She also works as a freelance copy editor, proofreader and graphic designer. Visit her website.
Link to articles by Sonja van der Westhuizen
Erin Britton
We rely heavily on Erin for her depth of knowledge when it comes to Golden Age and cosy crime fiction – although there are few corners of the genre she hasn’t tried. The former editor of NB Magazine, her reviews and articles have also appeared in Prairie Schooner, San Francisco Book Review, Split Lip and The Coil, among others. She is a freelance editor and proofreader. Erin is based in the UK.
Link to articles by Erin Britton
Paul Burke
Paul might just be our most energetic contributor and uses that energy to promote the crime fiction genre whenever he can. He enjoys a broad variety of novels and crime shows and is always keen to discover new authors who have a different take on things. He writes about fiction and non-fiction for Crime Fiction Lover, the European Literature Network and Crime Time and is the editor and presenter of the Crime Time FM podcast. Paul is a regular festival moderator, judge for the CWA Historical Dagger and is working on his first book of essays about crime fiction authors.
Link to articles by Paul Burke
Sharon Richardson
Based in Canada, Sharon brings her expertise in crime fiction from across that glorious nation to our site. However, her interest doesn’t stop at the 49th Parallel. Sharon loves any good mystery no matter where it comes from, particularly those that bring forward contemporary issues and question the norms and mistakes of today’s society. You may know her as Canada Hardcover on X/Twitter.
Link to articles by Sharon Richardson
Dave Bradley
With 25 years of experience, Dave is a seasoned writer on entertainment topics but if Columbo is on, that’s what he’ll be watching. Formerly the editor-in-chief of sci-fi mag SFX and the publisher of Crime Scene magazine, his insight and editorial ideas are invaluable. David’s favourite crime film is LA Confidential, and he admires authors such as John le Carré, Jonathan Kellerman, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Kathy Reichs. Follow him here on Twitter.
Link to articles by Dave Bradley
We thank our past contributors who’ve included nagaisayonara, Catherine Turnbull, Marina Sofia, Kate Vane, Mal McEwan, Spriteby, Zac Colbert, Eva Dolan, Luca Veste, Lucy Conlon, R Thomas Brown, Raven, MyBookishWays, Micah Mintz, T-Dot, Nicolette Hamilton, Keith Nixon, Andre Paine, Andrew Nette, Philip Rafferty, Jacques Filippi, Rafe McGregor, Jeremy Megraw and David Prestidge.
The money
To keep the site running, we are members of the Amazon Associates programme and earn micropayments from qualifying purchases, via both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. In addition, we are part of the Bookshop.org Affiliates programme. If you like what you do and want to support us, use the purchase boxes and links on our site when you buy books. It’s much appreciated!
For publishers, publicists and authors, we sell advertising and promotional services. To find out more about what we offer and our traffic, please visit the Promote page of our site.
Our editorial and advertising policies are entirely separate. Material sent in by advertisers will be considered for the site purely on its merits by our contributors. This policy is in place for the sake of our own integrity as well as yours. Crime Fiction Lover is not a site where you can buy a review, however we do carry supported content. If that’s something you’re interested in, use the link above to find out more.
Join us!
The best way to join our community of crime fiction lovers is to subscribe to our newsletter – we’ll keep you up to date with all our new posts. If you use social media, do join us on Bluesky, Twitter, Facebook and occasionally we’ll post images on Instagram. To get in touch with us directly, please use the Contact page here. We’d love to hear your comments and suggestions.
Reviews policy
We love reviewing great crime books, so publishers, publicists and authors are welcome to submit material for consideration. The best thing to do is send a press release in the first instance. We can’t guarantee that we’ll review your book if you send it to us, but we’ll do our best. If you don’t have our details, please use the contact page here. Please don’t use social media to lobby us for coverage.
Cool site! Ive now got a few new books to read thanks!
thank you, glad you like it
A great site which I only discovered a month or so ago, yet has given me some great books to enjoy. Thanks for your reviews and recommendations.
Thanks Lynchie. We’re so glad you like our site.
Can I pose a question? True crime stories use real perps in real crimes. Many are bestsellers. If I use a real perp in a fictional story can this get me in trouble? I’ve done it once with a prominent pedophile and so far so good. I plan on using another who is on a Wanted List.
Sorry, I don’t think we can give you advice on this matter.
You can make a fiction version of the same situation. If you want to write a non-fiction piece you have to use only references that are public knowledge or make a note that you are giving your own opinion not based on fact. I wrote a fiction version of an unsolved crime. I knew what happened and the supposition of why. As a fiction, I could say what I wanted, and used other names, not the real ones. Those who were close to the situation will know the truth, but by speaking they acknowledge the crime.
That’s right, even the situation being similar can conjure the memories of the referenced ‘perp’.
I would suggest referencing an artificial character to a real ‘perp’ so that the reader would be aware of the type and severity of criminal he or she is. The problems with these is that it’s a grisly situation by any means and my true suggestion would be to write something else. I’m a write and I personally don’t want to read about a child being abducted or sexually assaulted. A more clever way to put that notion across without crossing the line is to have the ‘perp’ give an inappropriate look or touch (above the waist) to give the notion and leave it at that. You can make implementations which are just as affective but again, I personally wouldn’t want to read any of it. There’s so much time spent writing and I don’t want it to be wrapped up in that world, but that’s just me.
Can’t find the subscribe field to enter my email. Can you add me to the newsletter please?
Hi Pamela – you need to go to the Subscribe section: https://staging.crimefictionlover.co.uk/subscribe/
What a fabulous site. I’m a huge fan of crime fiction. I especially like those in a series with same characters turning up.
Sorry, but I strongly dislike your re-design. The moving banner is highly irritating. I loved the previous design where I could instantly see updates and easily migrate to the parts I wanted to read and easily move on from the ones of less interest.
The old adage of, “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” fits pretty well….