Features

CIS: My classics by Ann Cleeves

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Ann Cleeves is one of the UK’s leading crime writers and, in time, there’s little doubt that her novels will rank as classics. In the 1986 she broke onto the scene with A Bird in the Hand, combining her interest in ornithology with a tale…
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CIS: Frequent Hearses

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Written by Edmund Crispin — Between 1944 and 1977, Robert Bruce Montgomery wrote a string of novels under the name Edmund Crispin. Today he is considered to be one of the underappreciated masters of the Golden Age of crime fiction. His novels featuring eccentric Oxford professor…
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CIS: Rim of the Pit revisited

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Today, when lists of new crime and thriller books are saturated with stories involving ever-more numerous and gruesome deaths for their fictional characters, a look back at the kinds of mysteries that emphasise puzzles over gore can be more than a bit refreshing. A classic…
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CIS: Cutter and Bone revisited

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For many, first contact with Cutter and Bone comes via the lauded 1981 film Cutter’s Way, directed by Ivan Passer. The movie had a difficult pathway to production – funding changes, Dustin Hoffman pulling out because of scheduling issues – and despite good notices, it…
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Features

CIS: Nicola Upson interviewed

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Her debut novel, An Expert in Murder, was the first in a series of classy crime novels by Nicola Upson, whose main character is Josephine Tey – one of the leading authors of the Golden Age of crime fiction. Tey’s detective novels were hugely popular…
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CIS: The classics of Tartan noir

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Scottish crime fiction has a long and lustrous history. Whether set in Scotland or written by Scots there is a wealth of classics from which to choose. Our feature includes some of the earliest examples as well as modern works by still-active authors – all…
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CIS: The Big Sleep revisited

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It’s impossible to imagine a proper historical survey of noir fiction without reference to Philip Marlowe, the iconic character created by Raymond Chandler in his ground-breaking 1939 debut novel The Big Sleep. Marlowe is the prototypical hardboiled private eye. Street-smart and tough, he reads people and situations at…
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