The Crime Readers' Association

When The Dust Settles – Jason Foss

5th May 2015

Every other Tuesday we feature a publication from leading independent publisher Endeavour Press. When The Dust Settles- Jason Foss When the young archaeologist Maddy Crowe is drafted in to work as cos...

CRA logoThanks and Welcome

1st May 2015

A massive thanks to our Featured Author for April- John Bayliss. We had four great posts from him. Hidden In Plain Sight The Butler Did It The Mystery of the Locked Room Mystery Lights, Camera, Write...

Case Files (Issue 14) is out now

28th April 2015

Case Files Issue 14 is now available. To sign up for your copy please follow the link below. http://www.thecra.co.uk/join-the-cra/ You will be added on our mailing list and will receive a weekly email...

My Writing History – Charlie Garratt

28th April 2015

I’ve written throughout my working life. For many years it was non-fiction; scripts for training videos, committee papers, research reports and community development guides. Then I emigrated to Irelan...

Spotlight on Mark Ellis

26th April 2015

  Mark was born in 1953 and grew up in Swansea. After studying law at Cambridge and being called to the Bar, he embarked on a roller-coaster business career which culminated with him being a foun...

Hidden in Plain Sight – John Bayliss

24th April 2015

You know the situation. You can’t find your keys. You look everywhere for them: in drawers, in cupboards, in the pockets of the jacket you were wearing three days ago, in the cat basket, at the bottom...

John Bayliss – The Butler Did It

17th April 2015

Despite the phrase ‘the butler did it’ being such a well worn cliché, there appear to be remarkably few cases of murderous butlers in the whole corpus of crime fiction—not even from the Golden Age, wh...

John Bayliss – The Mystery of the Locked Room Mystery

10th April 2015

We’ve all read them. We’ve all (hopefully) been mystified by them, too—those crime stories where how the crime was committed is as much of a puzzle as who committed it. They’re generally called ‘Locke...

Matthew Pritchard – Why Write Crime Fiction?

7th April 2015

Like most novelists, I write because I love to read. But when I first tried to set pen to paper, this posed me something of a problem. What was I going to write? After all, I loved to read everything:...

John Bayliss – Lights, Camera, Write!

3rd April 2015

If someone trained a camera on me whilst I was writing, I suspect that the results would not be as dull as you might expect. I don’t mean the typing part (which is dull), but the fact is that hammerin...

Behind the Scenes with an Editor – AJ Waines

1st April 2015

Every writer I know talks about Revisions. After submitting a book to an agent or publisher (and after a nail-biting wait (Do they like it?)), the response comes back in an email report outlining sugg...

Featured Author – Alex Shaw

6th March 2015

Welcome to Alex Shaw, our featured author for March. In this, his first post for the CRA, we wanted to get to know a little bit more about him.  How did you start writing?   It was 1996 and I was livi...

Featured Post: Fiction Feedback

2nd March 2015

We are delighted to have been sponsored by Fiction Feedback this month. Fiction Feedback provide an independent, affordable, critique service for writers – giving honest, helpful and professiona...

What’s the story – Sally Spedding

27th February 2015

There has to be enough of one whose selling ‘blurb’ and ‘shout line’ will persuade the casual browser that they are about to enter another world real enough to make them forget their own moorings. Thi...

Featured Author Friday – Sally Spedding

20th February 2015

Last week we had a great post from our Featured Author, Sally Spedding, but I know you want to know a little bit more about her….. My crime chillers explore the darkest sides of people and place...

Settings to Die For – Sally Spedding

13th February 2015

It has always been a particular setting which has fired the engine of my beginning either a new crime chiller or short story. A setting that hits my heart. Some have been discovered quite by accident,...

Catherine Aird – Diamond Dagger 2015

6th February 2015

Earlier today the CWA made much anticipated announcement of the winner of the 2015 Diamond Dagger. We caught up with Catherine Aird to find out what winning the Diamond Dagger meant to her. How do you...

Heroes and villains – David Beckler

30th January 2015

As with most genres, the most important character in crime fiction is the hero. This is usually a detective – amateur or professional – who solves the crimes. Writers intending to write a series must...

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