Less is More

According to Doug Johnstone…

I’ll keep this short, because that’s the point. Less is more, and all that.

Bloomsbury launches short story competition for budding crime writers

In this Year of the Short Story, Bloomsbury Publishing, in association with the Writers and Artists Yearbook, is launching a competition challenging writers to create a crime story in a 1000 words or less.

Carrigan & Miller: The Series Begins

After two stand alone novels, as Stav Sherez writes below, conceiving a series, with a view to the long-term, throws up new challenges and requires a whole new approach to creating fiction.

The Martin Edwards Column: The Thriller Technique

What makes a great thriller? Crime novelist, editor and commentator Martin Edwards explores the key features of this most enduring of creations.

The Martin Edwards Column: Collaborative mysteries

Crime novelist, editor and commentator Martin Edwards asks how do more two people write a book together? Or more than two?

The Martin Edwards Column: Locked Rooms

Crime novelist, editor and commentator Martin Edwards on the classic locked room set-up…

The Martin Edwards Column: Author Promotion

Crime novelist, editor and commentator Martin Edwards on the challenges facing crime authors attracting readers and promoting books.

The Martin Edwards Column: A New Book

Crime novelist, editor and commentator Martin Edwards discusses the inspiration behind his fifth Lake District Mysteries novel, The Hanging Wood, published today.

The Martin Edwards Column: The play’s the thing

A crime play can be just a tense and involving as a great novel, says novelist, editor and commentator Martin Edwards in the latest of his exclusive columns for Bookdagger.

The Martin Edwards Column: The invention of murder

Crime novelist, editor and commentator Martin Edwards looks at how true crime can inspire the best of fictional works in the latest of his exclusive columns for Bookdagger.

Urban Waite on writing The Terror of Living

Urban Waite is thirty years old. He lives and writes in Seattle. The Terror of Living is his first novel. He tells Bookdagger about the empathy he shares with his characters.

The Martin Edwards Column: Scenes of Crime

Crime novelist, editor and commentator Martin Edwards examines the importance of place in the latest of his exclusive columns for Bookdagger.

Win a copy of P.D. James’ Talking About Detective Fiction [closed]

Courtesy of Faber, three Bookdagger readers will win a copy of P.D. James’ commentary on crime and detective fiction, those authors that have inspired here, and what the genre means to her, and to us.

The Martin Edwards Column: Short and Sweet

Crime novelist, editor and commentator Martin Edwards discusses the short story form in the fifth of his exclusive monthly columns for Bookdagger.

The Martin Edwards Column: A Suitable Job for a Crime Writer?

In the fourth of his exclusive monthly columns for Bookdagger, crime novelist and commentator Martin Edwards takes a lookd at authors’ use of real-life characters and crime writers as fictitious detectives, and wonders who of today’s authors might be featured in future mystery fiction.

Flesh and Blood: Breathing Life Into a Series Character

Chris Carter, author of The Crucifix Killer and the soon to be released The Executioner explains how he developed Robert Hunter into a series character.

A little too much irony

Craig Robertson on the differences between the harrowing facts of the Cumbria shooting and the plotted fiction of his serial killer thriller Random.

R. N. Morris on switching from thrillers to arias

R. N. Morris explains how he ended up as both a writer of historical crime novels – and the librettist for a new opera…

The Martin Edwards Column: Are two heads better than one?

For the first of his exclusive monthly columns for Bookdagger, crime novelist and commentator Martin Edwards explores the enduring success of crime-writing partnerships. It seems it’s not just some detectives who work better in pairs.

The Bookdagger Author Panel: Sympathy for the Devil

We asked three crime authors about how they handle writing one of the most important aspects of any crime novel: the baddy!