Features

CIS: An introduction to Michael Innes

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He’s one of the longest-serving literary detectives, but do lovers of classic crime still read the extravagant, erudite novels featuring Inspector John Appleby? Have crime readers even heard of Michael Innes, the pen name adopted by Scottish academic and author John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (1906-1994)…
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Features

Happy Birthday, Colin Dexter

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Once in a generation comes a writer whose words translate into film and television so successfully that the books and the novels become indivisible. Those of us who read Colin Dexter’s Morse novels from the beginning, in 1975,  may have had our own imaginings of…
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Features

CIS: William Boyd on James Bond

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Sixty-one years after his creation, James Bond lives on through the films starring Daniel Craig, and the enduringly popular books by Ian Fleming. However, a select band of authors have also been working to carry on the spy’s story, including Kingsley Amis (Colonel Sun, 1968),…
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FeaturesKindle

CIS: Black Mask returns

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One of the highlights of crime fiction publishing this year has to be the re-publication of the legendary pulp fiction magazine Black Mask. Thanks to MysteriousPress.com, Black Mask is going digital, making the magazine’s original content accessible to a whole new generation of readers. Readers…
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Features

CIS: Shroud for a Nightingale revisited

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Written by PD James — Has it really been 42 years since this PD James novel came out, one of her best-known and most-loved works? Although it was her fourth book featuring poet and police detective Adam Dalgliesh, it was the first, and certainly not…
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Features

CIS: The first female detectives

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We’ve just been celebrating the 123rd birthday of Agatha Christie, who created spinster sleuth Miss Marple in 1926. But if you thought Marple was the first female literary detective – albeit, an amateur – you might be surprised to learn you were out by several…
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