CRIMINALLY MINDED – Tales of the behaviourally challenged

90% of my friends have been dead for hundreds of years. They speak to me profoundly in ways that organisms encountered in everyday life do not. By the alchemy of the written word they reach out behind the black cloak of time. Breakfast with David Hume, lunch with Baruch Spinoza, supper with Arthur Schopenhauer, evening […]

It is entirely conventional now in crime and detective fiction for the setting of the events to be as much a character as the individuals playing out the narrative. So we think of Jersey as the backdrop to the police cases of Jim Bergerac, Oxford for Inspector Morse, Edinburgh for John Rebus, Glasgow for Jim

Anthony Horowitz (http://www.anthonyhorowitz.com/) is an English novelist and screenwriter specialising in mystery and suspense. His output is large across a range of genres. The summary of his latest, Magpie Murders, is as follows: When editor Susan Ryeland is given the tattered manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has little idea it will change her

Ian Rankin (http://www.ianrankin.net/) scarcely needs introduction. The prolific Scottish crime writer has shared the cases of Inspector John Rebus with us for years now. The City of Edinburgh is the almost invariable setting for the dark crimes which he investigates. In this latest tale, Rebus investigates a cold case that has turned hot again. Incapable of

Christopher Brookmyre (http://www.brookmyre.co.uk/ and  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Brookmyre) has won the The McIlvanney Prize – previously known as the ‘Scottish Crime Book of the Year’ – at the Bloody Scotland festival in Stirling (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-37323557). To see why this writer is so respected by other authors in the crime fiction field, and adored by a legion of fans, read his latest crime

Novelist Mark Billingham (https://www.markbillingham.com/) writes crime thrillers. He also works as a television screenwriter and has become a familiar face as an actor and stand up comedian. Billingham created Detective Inspector Tom Thorne for his 2001 debut novel Sleepyhead, where a case of locked-in syndrome reveals the dark depths of a twisted mind, as adept at toying

Mason Cross (a.k.a. Gavin Bell) (http://masoncross.net/) was born in Cambuslang and has established himself as a first rate crime writer in a short time. Bell studied English at the University of Stirling and has worked in the voluntary sector, as tax officer, an events coordinator, and a project manager. He has written a number of short

Samuel Bjørk is the pen name of Norwegian novelist, playwright and singer/songwriter Frode Sander Øien. Øien wrote his first stageplay at the age of twenty-one and has since then written two well received novels, Pepsi Love (2001) and Speed for Breakfast (2009). I’m Travelling Alone is Øien’s first crime thriller.It made #1 on German newspaper