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Voting is under way for this year’s Dagger in the Library crime writing award and people working in libraries are being encouraged to take part. Run by the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA), the award’s success is down to the work of library staff and volunteers in the UK and Ireland. They initially nominate authors, often…
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Members of the Goodreads review website team have been tracking the most eagerly-anticipated books of 2026 and now the list is out. The 68 books are all to be published in the United States in 2026 but the list will be similar elsewhere in the world. They were selected on the back of factors including…
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The latest book written by author Tracey Iceton has been published – and it’s a remarkable work which is very different from her previous titles. Sparky: My Barn Owl Tale (2026, Cinnamon Press) is Sparky’s semi-(auto)biographical account of life before, and since, she and Tracey met in 2022. Hatched in the UK in August 2017,…
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The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has issued a reminder that there is still time to enter one of the most exciting opportunities available for unpublished writers. The Emerging Author Dagger (formerly the Debut Dagger), sponsored by Fiction Feedback Editorial Consultancy, is an international competition, open to any unpublished writer in the world writing in English,…
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The business world was shaken to its core with the publication six years ago of the searing expose of corporate big business The Diary of Ridley Pinstripe. Indeed, it was so shaken that virtually no one bought a copy of the book, so now it has been relaunched thanks to popular lack of demand and…
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No publishing format is growing more rapidly worldwide than audiobooks at the moment, and it is possible to enjoy eight of John Dean’s crime novels being brought to life by the excellent Nicholas Camm (pictured here). They include four each in the DCI John Blizzard and DCI Jack Harris series of books, published in other…
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I am fortunate in that my books attract mostly good reviews on the likes of Amazon and Goodreads, and every so often a phrase will stand out. The latest example was from ‘Bootsy’, on Amazon in the United States (I have a growing number of readers in America and very welcome they are, too), who…
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Writing is often about real-time reminders of some of the most basic of truths about the craft we know and love. One of those truths is that characters provide the heartbeat of stories and sometimes the best thing is to give them their head and see where they take you. I mention this because I…
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The book review site Goodreads has announced its most popular books of 2025, based on vote from its members. Among the winners in the seventeenth annual Goodreads Choice awards are Holly Jackson, with Not Quite Dead Yet, which won the Mystery and Thriller category, and Rebecca Yarros with Onyx Storm, topping the Romantasy section. More…
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Another reminder of one of my older crime novels that you may have forgotten. Strange Little Girl She is the one who DCI John Blizzard remembers with a stab of guilt. Still missing after a murderous attack on her family, she was an awkward child, difficult to know, difficult to like, everyone said, the one…
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John Dean - Crime Writer 