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I am delighted that a review posted on Amazon UK on Friday October 31 (thank you, Ginger) praised as ‘outstanding’ the research in The Meek Shall Inherit, a DCI John Blizzard crime novel published by The Book Folks, a Joffe Books company. The review meant a lot because, for the first time in one of…
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The first Northern Writers’ Awards for 2026 – The Hachette Children’s Novel Awards and Young Writers’ Awards – are open for submissions. Debut writers of middle grade and early teen fiction can win £3,000 and a nine-month programme of mentoring and support from Hachette Children’s Group. The Young Writers’ Awards are also open for ages…
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Poet Kenneth Steven has a knack of picking fascinating subjects and giving them a distinctive treatment and his latest collection A Song Among The Stones adds to that reputation. Kenneth chose the story of 7th Century Irish hermit monks who left the island of Iona and dared to cross an unforgiving ocean to the wild,…
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The second crime novel by Castle Douglas writer David L Haigh has been published with the third in the series to be available in November (2025). Hooked By The Past, the second book in the series, is published by Ingle-Haigh and follows David’s debut crime novel Land Kill, which came out in February 2024. Ingle-Haigh…
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Ambitious emerging writers who are seeking to break into the world of crime fiction should always be keen to learn (as, might I humbly suggest, should those of us who are more experienced as well!) and that means eagerly pouncing on interviews with those who work in the industry, particularly those whose job is to…
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When you are an author writing novels for a series, the biggest challenge is keeping the narrative fresh. But how do you achieve that? The answer is by injecting energy into each story to avoid a sense that it’s ‘same old, same old’. One way to do that is to come up with a story…
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Best-selling crime writer John Dean has posted another article to help aspiring writers and offer insights for readers, this one focusing on injecting emotions into flat passages. I, as you may know from recent posts, am in the final weeks of editing the next DCI Blizzard novel to send to my publisher The Book Folks,…
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The latest book in the DCI Jack Harris series of crime fiction novels (published by the Book Folks, a Joffe Books imprint) continues to attract encouraging reviews, which is gratifying. More gratifying than usual, actually, because I deliberately set out to do things differently in Murder on the Pennines, including giving the main character’s back…
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Best-selling crime writer John Dean has posted his latest blog, which is aimed both at helping emerging writers learning their craft and giving readers an insight into the way an author balances writing for fans of a series with the needs of new readers. You can read the article here and it is also on…
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Best-selling crime writer John Dean has considered the challenges in writing Point of View in his latest article to help aspiring writers. You can read it here or drop into the Handy Hints sections of this website which has many such pieces. This article has also been added to Handy Hints – Characters where it…
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John Dean - Crime Writer 