Crime Time FM – Details, episodes & analysis

Episode Two: On The Road With Victoria: Nicci French HAS ANYONE SEEN CHARLOTTE SALTER

Live event at Waterstones Colchester with dynamic duo Nicci French (aka husband & wife writing team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French) and a fascinating discussion ranging from inspiration to AI.

VICTORIA SELMAN
SundayTimes bestselling author of ALL THE LITTLE LIARS
Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS
Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com
Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

We love to hear from our listeners! Find me on Twitter @VictoriaSelman and join in the chat using #OnTheSofaWithVictoria

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

I S Berry chats to Paul Burke about her espionage thriller THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW, already an Edgar First Novel, Barry and ITW Award Winner in the US, just published in the UK. The only female former field agent writing spy fiction.

THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain for his final tour, he’s anxious to dispense with his mission ― uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency. But then he meets Almaisa, an enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats never experience, to questions he never thought to ask.
When his trusted informant becomes embroiled in a murder, Collins finds himself drawn deep into the conflict, his romance and loyalties upended. In an instant, he’s caught in the crosswinds of a revolution. He sets out to learn the truth behind the Arab Spring, win Almaisa’s love, and uncover the murky border where Bahrain’s secrets end and America’s begin.
Now optioned for film by Scott Delman of Shadowfox productions (Producer of HBO Max hit series Station Eleven).

I. S. Berry spent six years as an operations officer for the CIA and has lived and worked in Europe and the Middle East, including two years in Bahrain during the Arab Spring. She has a degree in Law from the University of Virginia, and is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, International Association of Crime Writers, and the Association of Former Intelligence Workers. The Peacock and The Sparrow was her debut novel, published in 2023. Berry currently lives in Virginia with her husband and son.

Recommended
The Little Drummer Girl John Le Carré, The Quiet American Graham Greene, The Innocent Ian McEwan, The Attack Yasmina Khadra, Joseph Kanon, David McCloskey & Paul Vidich.
Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.

Produced by Junkyard Dog
Crime Time

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

ABIR MUKHERJEE chats to Paul Burke about his new thriller HUNTED at the Liphook Millennium Centre 3/9/24.

HUNTED IN A RACE AGAINST TIME, WHAT IF THE GREATEST THREAT WAS YOUR OWN CHILD?
It’s a week before the presidential elections when a bomb goes off in an LA shopping mall…
In London, armed police storm Heathrow Airport and arrest Sajid Khan. His daughter Aliyah entered the USA with the suicide bomber, and now she’s missing, potentially plotting another attack.
But then a mysterious woman called Carrie turns up at Sajid’s door after travelling halfway across the world. She claims Aliyah is with her son Greg, and she knows where they could be.
Back in the US, Agent Shreya Mistry is closing in on the two fugitives. But the more she investigates, the more she realises this case is far from as simple as it seems.
Hunted by the authorities, the two parents are thrown together in a race against time to find their kids before the FBI does and stop a catastrophe that will bring the world to its knees.

ABIR MUKHERJEE is the bestselling author of the award-winning Wyndham & Banerjee series of crime novels set in 1920s India. His books have been translated into fifteen languages and won various awards including the CWA Dagger for best Historical Novel, the Prix du Polar Européen, and the Wilbur Smith Award for Adventure Writing. He also co-hosts the popular Red Hot Chilli Writers podcast which takes a wry look at the world of books, writing, and the creative arts, tackling everything from bestsellers to pop culture.
Abir grew up in Scotland and now lives in Surrey with his wife and two sons.
Website: abirmukherjee.com
Twitter, Threads & Instagram: @radiomukhers
Facebook: AuthorAbir

Recommendation
THE NAMESAKE JHUMPA LAHIRI

Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.

Because this is recorded live there are occasional background noises hopefully it won't spoil your listening pleasure.

Produced by Junkyard Dog
Crime Time

Thanks to Liphook Millennium Centre & Haslemere Bookshop

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

ANDREW NETTE chats new heist thriller ORPHAN ROAD, Gunshine State, pulp fiction and bodgies & widgies.

ORPHAN ROAD Gary Chance is an ex-Australian army driver and nightclub bouncer turned professional thief and in need of a job. An offer comes from a former employer, once notorious Melbourne social identity, now aging owner of a failing S&M club, Vera Leigh.
A shadowy real estate developer is trying to squeeze Leigh out of a rapidly gentrifying city. But she has a rescue plan that involves one of Australia’s biggest heists, Melbourne’s Great Bookie Robbery. On April 21, 1976, a well organised gang stole as much as three million dollars, a fortune at the time, from a Melbourne bookmakers club. The money was never recovered. No one was charged. And everyone associated with the crime has since died, either by natural causes or violently.
Leigh maintains that money was not the only thing stolen that day. So was a stash of uncut South African diamonds. And she wants Chance’s help to retrieve them. Problem is, they are not the only ones looking.
The heist always goes wrong and the consequences, even half a century later, can be deadly.

ANDREW NETTE is an author of fiction and non-fiction, pulp scholar and lover of all things noir. He is the author of three novels, Ghost Money, a crime story set in Cambodia in the mid-nineties, and the heist thriller, Gunshine State and the sequel Orphan Road.
He is co-editor of Girl Gangs, Biker Boys & Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980, and Sticking it to the Man:Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1956 to 1980, forthcoming in 2019.
His short fiction has appeared in a number of print publications, including The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir (Three Rooms Press, 2017), Crime Scenes, an anthology of Australian crime fiction (Spineless Wonders, 2016), and Phnom Penh Noir (Heaven Lake Press, 2012). His online home is www.pulpcurry.com or you can follow him on Twitter @Pulpcurry

Horwitz Publications, Pulp Fiction and the Rise of the Australian Paperback (Anthem Studies in Book History, Publishing and Print Culture).

Recommend - Books: Carter Brown, Philip Kerr, Ernesto Mello, Peter Temple, Wallace Stroby, Peter Corris The Dying Trade, Gabrielle Lord The Fortress. Film: The Beast of the City, Nightmare Alley, The Beguiled, Mr. Inbetween, Mystery Road, Limbo, Phoenix.

Guy Hale for info on Guy Hale and Hillside Global and the music of Mike Zito ft. Kid Anderson - Killing Me Softly.

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

DENISE MINA chats to Craig Sisterson about her new Marlowe novel THE SECOND MURDERER, revisiting the misogyny, racism,  Feminism

THE SECOND MURDERER:
"This is Marlowe."
"Mr. Philip Marlowe?" She asked.
I glanced at the clock. It was exactly eleven am, as if she had been waiting by the
phone for an appointed hour, following someone else's orders to the letter.
"What, d'you think we're a troupe of brothers? There is only me."
It's mid-September, a heatwave has descended on the parched hills of LA and Private Detective Philip Marlowe is called to the Montgomery estate, an almost mythic place sitting high on top of Beverly Hills. Wealthy twenty-two-year-old Chrissie Montgomery, set to inherit an enormous fortune, is missing.
She's a walking target, ripe for someone to get their claws into. Her dying father, along with his sultry bottle blonde girlfriend, wants her found before that happens. They've hired Anna Riorden, Marlowe's nemesis, too. The search takes them to the roughest neighbourhoods of LA through dive bars and Skid Row. And that's before he finds the body at The Brody Hotel. Who will get to her first, Marlowe, Anne, or the men chasing her fortune? And does she want to be found?

DENISE MINA is the author of the Garnethill trilogy, the Paddy Meehan series and the Alex Morrow series. She has won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award twice and was inducted into the Crime Writers’ Association Hall of Fame in 2014. The Long Drop won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2017 as well as the Gordon Burn Prize and was named by The Times as one of the top ten crime novels of the decade. Conviction was the co-winner of the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2019 and was selected for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Book Club. Denise has also written plays and graphic novels, and presented television and radio programmes. She lives and works in Glasgow.

Craig Sisterson is a features writer and crime fiction expert from New Zealand who writes for newspapers and magazines in several countries. In recent years he's interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at festivals on three continents. He's been a judge of the McIlvanney Prize and Ned Kelly Awards, and is founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards and co-founder of Rotorua Noir. He lives in London with his daughter. He is the author of  SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME: The Pocket Essentials Guide to the Crime Fiction, Film & TV of Australia & New Zealand.


Episode sponsored by Guy Hale author of The Comeback Trail trilogy, featuring Jimmy Wayne - KILLING ME SOFTLY, BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE.
TOO MUCH KID - MIKE ZITO featuring Kid Anderson (from The Songs of Jimmy Wayne: Killing Me Softly album)

GUY HALE for information on Guy Hale, the Comeback Trail novels and the latest news.
Song on this episode TOO MUCH KID

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

SEASON 5: EPISODE ONE - PUBLISHING GURUS, heavyweights Katherine Armstrong (Deputy Publishing Director - Simon & Schuster), Miranda Jewess - (Publishing Director Viper) and David Headley (leading literary agent - Goldsboro Books, DHH Literary Agency) join Victoria shedding light on the role of the advance in a book's success and what makes a publisher snap up a title.

Recommendation:
Publishing Rodeo Podcast
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
Goodnight Mr. Tom - Michelle Magorian
Danny the Champion of the World - Roald Dahl

VICTORIA SELMAN
SundayTimes bestselling author of ALL THE LITTLE LIARS
Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS
Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com
Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

We love to hear from our listeners! Find me on Twitter @VictoriaSelman and join in the chat using #OnTheSofaWithVictoria

Produced by Junkyard Dog
Music courtesy of Southgate and Leigh
Crime Time

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

SARAH MOORHEAD chats to Paul Burke about her new speculative crime thriller   THE TREATMENT, Witness X, Liverpool, teaching, good & evil, Debut 20s and the godfather of the northern crime writing scene, young people today and Wizard of Oz meets Frankenstein.

THE TREATMENT: The future of law enforcement has arrived, courtesy of private health contractor Janus Justice. Their ground-breaking ‘Offender Treatment Programme’ has been hailed as the most effective way of tackling crime yet.
As offenders move through the four-tiered system, their needs are dealt with, each tier more drastic in its methods:
Tier One: Low-risk crimes. Physical therapy encouraged
Tier Two: Trauma and addiction. Emotional and psychological reasons for offending are examined
Tier Three: Aversion therapy & moral punishment
Tier Four: Siberia, where all hope is lost
But Grace Gunnarsson, one of Janus’ most highly regarded rehabilitation psychiatrists, has uncovered a terrible flaw in the system, one that is allowing people to get away with murder...

SARAH MOORHEAD - Born in Liverpool, Sarah Moorhead has told stories since childhood and uses writing as bubblegum for her over-active brain – to keep it out of trouble. Fascinated by meaning, motivation and mystery, she studied Theology at university.
Over the last twenty seven years, apart from teaching in secondary school, Sarah has attained a black belt in kickboxing, worked as a chaplain, established a Justice and Peace youth group, and written articles for newspapers and magazines about her work in education and religion. She still lives in her beloved hometown.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Susan Greenfield, John York, Will Storr, Lisa Kron, Stuart Turton, Anthony Burgess
Fiona Cumming - Into the Dark , All of Us are Broken

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023.

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

LEIGH RUSSELL chats to Paul about GS20, the latest Geraldine Steel novel WITHOUT TRACE  the art of writing a series, the new Poppy novels and dreaming of penning a successful comic novel one day.

WITHOUT TRACE She opened her mouth to scream, but he slapped something across her lips. The gag tasted of salt and mould, rough sacking on her tongue.With a terrifying certainty, she knew she was going to die.
DI Geraldine Steel knows people go missing all the time; sometimes because they don't want to be found. So when her partner Ian asks her to look into the disappearance of his football-buddy's girlfriend, her first instinct is to reassure him there's no need for concern.
Until she's called to a suspected murder, and all her instincts tell her she's right about the identity of the victim.
The young woman has earth and leaf mould and fragments of twigs in her long fair hair, her nose, her mouth, under her finger nails, clinging to her clothes. It's as if she'd been completely encased in earth. And yet she was found on the pavement, at the side of a suburban road, where she wasn't in contact with any soil or mud.
Had she managed to escape a living grave?
Without a crime scene, the investigation focuses on her boyfriend. But Ian insists his friend is incapable of murder, and Steel is torn. Without evidence, she knows their case is weak. But without evidence, can she let a possible killer go free?
She needs to find out what really happened. Where did the assault occur? Why are there traces of DNA from two other unidentified sources on the body? What reason could there be to attack a popular young woman who never did anyone any harm? And why bury her body so carelessly that she was able to escape?
Then another young woman is reported missing. Unless he has an accomplice, they have an innocent man in custody. And Steel is running out of time . . .

LEIGH RUSSELL has sold over one and a half million crime fiction novels. Her Geraldine Steel titles published by No Exit Press have appeared on many bestseller lists, and reached #1 on kindle. Leigh's work has been nominated for several major awards, including the CWA New Blood Dagger and CWA Dagger in the Library, and her books have been optioned by major television production company Avalon Television. She chairs the CWA Debut Dagger Award judges and is a Consultant Royal Literary Fellow.
Find out more about Leigh on her website http://www.leighrussell.co.uk where news, reviews and interviews are posted, with a schedule of Leigh's appearances. You can contact Leigh via her website, where you can subscribe to her newsletter and follow her on Twitter and facebook.

Recommendations - Graham Greene, Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguru, Ian McEwan, Jean Plaidy, Ben Aaronovich, Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Purple Hibiscus.

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023.

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

VICTORIA SELMAN chats to Paul Burke about ALL THE LITTLE LIARS, Psychological depth in thrillers, what readers want, On The Sofa, victims and survivors and so much more...

ALL THE LITTLE LIARS: What REALLY happened at Turtle Lake? You think you know. Think again.
California, 2003
A thirteen-year-old girl disappears from a party at Carlsbad's Turtle Lake. Discovered on the trunk of a nearby cottonwood tree is the word 'LIAR' graffitied in blood.
What you know . . .
Three teenagers went to the lake that night but only two came back. Later, they confess to murdering their friend.
. . . is only part of the story
But did they really kill her? And if not, why say they did?
Told across two timelines and tapping into a horrific crime, All the Little Liars is a novel about sisterly love and toxic friendship that asks: how much would you sacrifice to belong?

VICTORIA SELMAN
SundayTimes bestselling author of ALL THE LITTLE LIARS
Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS
Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com
Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

We love to hear from our listeners! Find me on Twitter @VictoriaSelman and join in the chat using #OnTheSofaWithVictoria

Recommendations
Danya Kukafta Notes on an Execution
Clémence Michallon The Quiet Tenant
Ivy Pochoda These Women
Victor E. Frankl Man's Search for Meaning
Anything by Jeffery Deaver
Mentioned - Chaos Tom O'Neill

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023.

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

SJ PARRIS chats to Paul Burke about ALCHEMY, Giordano Bruno, religion, heresy, politics,  science and alchemy in the sixteenth century world, Hilary Mantel & Sophia 1599.

ALCHEMY: Prague, 1588.A COURT IN TURMOIL
The Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, wants to expand the boundaries of human knowledge, and his court is a haven for scientists, astrologers and alchemists. His abiding passion is the feverish search for the philosopher’s stone and thus immortality. The Catholic Church fears he has pushed too far, into the forbidden realm of heresy – and the greatest powers in Christendom are concerned about the imperial line of succession.
A MURDERED ALCHEMIST
Giordano Bruno is sent to his court by Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s spymaster. His task: to contact the famous English alchemist and mystic John Dee, another of Walsingham’s spies. But Bruno’s arrival in Prague coincides with the brutal murder of a rival alchemist – and John Dee himself has disappeared.
AN UNFORGIVING ENEMY
Ordered by the emperor to find the killer, Bruno’s investigations bring him face to face with an old enemy from the Inquisition. But could the real danger lie elsewhere? Amidst the jostling factions at court and the religious tensions brewing in the city, Bruno has to track down a murderer as elusive as the elixir of life itself.

SJ PARRIS is the pen name of Stephanie Merritt who began reviewing books for national newspapers while she was reading English literature at Queens’ College, Cambridge. After graduating, she went on to become Deputy Literary Editor of The Observer in 1999. She continues to work as a feature writer and critic for the Guardian and the Observer and from 2007-2008 she curated and produced the Talks and Debates program on issues in contemporary arts and politics at London’s Soho Theatre. She has appeared as a panelist on various Radio Four shows and on BBC2’s Newsnight Review, and is a regular chair and presenter at the Hay Festival and the National Theatre. She has been a judge for the Costa Biography Award, the Orange New Writing Award and the Perrier Comedy Award. She lives in the south of England with her son.

Recommendations
The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco
Hilary Mantel
A Perfect Spy John le Carré
THE FRAUD ZADIE SMITH

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023.

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,