Features

Classics in September 2017 - a recap

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The month of September has come to a close, and with it our annual celebration of classic crime fiction of all flavours. We’ve looked at the Golden Age, Sherlock Holmes, cosy, noir, neo-noir, thrillers… you name it. We’ve covered range of crime novels, authors of…
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Features

CIS: James Runcie interviewed

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The Grantchester novels by James Runcie are moral fables with a nod to the tradition of classic crime, mixing together mystery, comedy and social history. Set in a Cambridgeshire village between 1953 and 1977, the Grantchester stories are more than that, though – they are about…
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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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Features

Tortuous tinsel: 10 crime books for Christmas

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Ah, the good old Christmas season. A time of family, a time of goodwill, a time of heightened emotion and… sometimes… deadly passion. Christmas-themed crime fiction seems to be making a comeback, with many popular authors penning short stories and Amazon one-offs for the season….
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Features

A classic revisited: Heed the Thunder

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Jim Thompson’s second novel Heed the Thunder is a sprawling, multi-generational epic following the descent of the Fargo clan at the turn of the 19th century. Although not a noir in the strictest sense, its ominous style and cruel but sympathetic characters show clear signs…
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Book Club

Fatale

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No-one does contempt for the bourgeoisie quite like the French, and Jean-Patrick Manchette was as hard left as they come. Before succumbing to cancer in 1995 he had re-invented the French noir novel with his own unique brand of hardboiled. In this re-issue of Fatale…
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iBookKindlePrintReviews

Fatale

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Written by Jean-Patrick Manchette, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith — It is not fashionable anymore to be a leftist writer of crime fiction. Yet there have been a few crime writers whose works we now consider to be classics who had left-leaning political convictions. Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Dashiel Hammett,…
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