Imagine that you have ended up in prison, as a result of poverty and constrained life choices. Now imagine being told that you will serve out the rest of your prison sentence on the other side of the world – and you are unlikely to ever find your way home. Such is the fate facing […]
‘It’s a bit like butchers telling you they’re taking good care of animals.’ Ouch. Peter Wohlleben is not pulling any punches in his discussion of ‘clear cuts’ in forestry, (removing all the trees) but then, why would he when he considers “traditional forestry” to be the very definition of madness – “doing the same thing […]
Do you feel happy? Sad? Or do you mostly just feel – blah. Flat emotions may not be a sign that someone is experiencing depression, but it can be a precursor to it. After all, we might desire a life without sadness, fear and anger, but no one wants a life devoid of joy, excitement […]
Did you know that lions no longer live in prides? It makes sense when you think about it: of course, as available territory has reduced and can’t sustain large groups, lions must necessarily live and hunt in smaller groups. This was one of the many thought provoking pieces of information my daughters and I discovered […]
Sometimes it’s nice to try reading something a little different. ‘Where the Water Flows’, a story about a dramatic event rather than a crime, certainly fits that description for me. The Blurb: It had been a long, hot summer followed by a very wet autumn. The River Hawk, lying to the north of a former […]
Local drug dealer found dead – very dead. Death is surely an occupational hazard for drug dealers, especially those who are actively engaged in turf warfare, but when Tadeusz Filipowski’s body is examined, it becomes clear that more than one person really wanted him dead. It’s up to Heart of England police detective sergeant Sunita Roy […]
‘I think I might have killed her…’ These are not the words Frank Philips expect to hear when he attends his local AA meeting, but they are the words that will haunt him when he learns that a woman was murdered that night – and that the killer may now be targeting other members of […]
A missing man. A careless wife. An ailing business. Is Harry Bowers dead or deliberately missing? Heart of England police are determined to find out. What’s it about? I’m pinching the blurb for this one: The peace of a Midlands village is upset when local businessman Harry Bowers doesn’t return from choir practice. More concerned […]
‘I was beginning to regret choosing crime as the subject for my mold-breaking bestseller – the red tape was fierce.’ Today I am delighted to host an extract from The Awful Truth About the Herbert Quarry Affair, a book purportedly written by the main character in real time… How does that work? Denis Shaughnessy is […]
I think Denis Shaughnessy just invented a new genre. This is crime fiction, but it’s also a wickedly funny send-up of crime novels. It’s a wonderfully self-aware text, in which a completely not self-aware author creates chaos by writing literally whatever comes into his head and hoping the reader will let him get away with […]