Torn by Holmes

In the search for writers for the New Year, I came across Bonnie MacBird. As a fan of the original canon of Sherlock Holmes, this series of four intrigued me. However, as I began this adventure I found the opening location of the story, based mostly in France was at times an irritating distraction, as …

William Shaw’s latest Recommendation

The Storm by Amanda Jennings is the perfect way to round off my year. With only three events left, this book is one which will be difficult to forget, given its unique way of dealing with domestic violence. William Shaw introduced me to Amanda's work on his daily events on Facebook during the pandemic. This …

The December Interviews

December's interviews will start on Friday the 4th, with a rearranged interview from October with Stuart Turton, the writer of The Devil and the Dark Water. Since October this book has appeared on BBC2's in-between the covers and I can now ask him about that, along with all of the other things I was going …

A hand in two stories

As a live interviewer, these days I get very little chance to read purely for pleasure. What Falls Between the Cracks is the first book by Robert Scragg and its premise of a hand in a freezer was memorable enough to allow me to listen to this book initially in the evening whilst listening to …

Catching up with Connelly

After a hectic month of interviews on UK Crime Book Club, I've been using the time between books to try and catch up with other events that have occurred in the recent past. This lunch time, I've just watched the interview between Ian Rankin and Michael Connelly as they talked about their most recent releases. …

Four Little Stories

This review of CL Taylor's Strangers has been a long time in coming, but when William Shaw's Reading Party invited her on to read with fans on his new Zoom venture, the circle from last April was closed. I first heard about this when she spoke about it at Nottingham Waterstones. An incident that brought …

Vn@B’s next Venture

Bay Tales is the brand-new project from the team behind Virtual Noir at the Bar. Launched at the beginning of November, Bay Tales is a new concept which brings written fiction and non-fiction together with virtual and physical events to offer ‘Friends of the Bay’ members access to some of the biggest and best authors …

The end of a Trilogy

The Embalmer is the first series I have read that you truly call a Trilogy, as all the characters including the minor ones have been in every book. The only difference being that the killer is different in each book. This allowed for a universe to be fleshed out in Alison's graphic way. When I …

The Truth is Complicated

After Kia Abdullah wrote Take it Back, I interviewed her on UK Crime Book Club's Bank Holiday mini-festival. At the time she was just about to release her follow up and this Friday she is to be interviewed by Samantha Brownley, one of the other interviewers on UK Crime Book Club's interview team. This gave …

The latest Ware

As the nights draw in, Ruth Ware's latest book, One by One, is a perfect winter read. I don't think there is anyone better at writing isolated locations and her ability to write about the middle class perspective is good, too. I wish I had as much money as most of her characters. The main …