Features

CIS: The 10 best classic crime comics

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From classic characters to compelling concepts by legendary creators, Alex Thomas of expert website Pipedream Comics looks at 10 of the very best classic crime comics available today. He shares his picks with us here during Classics in September, and each of these is available…
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CIS: The novels of Ted Lewis, a doomed genius

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What is it about brilliant writing and alcohol? Men like Faulkner, Thomas, Poe, Chandler, Capote, Hemingway and Joyce were no stranger to the bottle. Meanwhile, Patricia Highsmith said that strong drink enabled her to “…see the truth, the simplicity, and the primitive emotions once more.” One…
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CIS: June Wright, Australia's queen of crime

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“Our very own Agatha Christie,” claims a quote from the Sydney Morning Herald on the cover of June Wright’s Duck Season Death, written in 1955 but only just published. In post-war Australia, June Wright’s mystery novels famously outsold even Christie’s, and yet by Wright’s death…
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Features

CIS: My classics by Luke Delaney

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For 16 years, Luke Delaney was a member of the Metropolitan Police in London, mainly in CID. He worked in some of the roughest areas of South London, investigating everything from gangland violence through to serial killers. To this day, his identity needs to remain a secret,…
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CIS: The Joe Kurtz novels by Dan Simmons

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Dan Simmons was already well into his writing career when he began the Joe Kurtz series. Prior to the first book, Hardcase (2001), Simmons was known as first a science fiction and then later as a horror writer. Most recently Simmons has been writing books…
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CIS: A classic revisited - Red Harvest

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Along with Sam Spade, there is hardly a more iconic character in crime fiction history than the aloof yet resolute private eye The Continental Op. And both are the creation of Dashiell Hammett, best known internationally as the author of the Maltese Falcon. Hammett, along with fellow pulp…
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CIS: My classics by Ruth Ware

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Take one hen party containing some women with very different personalities, add in varying degrees of closeness and inclusivity, layer with a few dark secrets, and you have author Ruth Ware’s debut novel In a Dark, Dark Wood which came out earlier this year. The tagline…
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First look: Tennison by Lynda La Plante

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Jane Tennison is back! Well, she’s back in a reverse back-to-the-future sort of way… Lynda La Plante has written a prequel to her Prime Suspect TV series, and in it DCI Tennison is merely WPC Tennison, fresh out of college, and learning about being a copper the…
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