Crime Time FM

CWA DAGGER SPECIALS - Paul Burke chats to Crime Writers Association Diamond Dagger Winner MARK BILLINGHAM , Bread & Circuses - agitprop, Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, Stand Up, TV writing, Tom Thorne, Declan Miller, taking control with fiction. Diamond Dagger sponsored by Karen Baugh Menuhin The most prestigious Dagger of all, awarded for a lifetime contribution to English-language crime writ...

CWA Daggers Special: Episode One The Shortlists - Interviews with five Dagger Shortlisted authors in the run up to Awards Night announcements on 2nd July. Nicci Cloke Her Many Faces - Twisted Dagger   Victoria Goldman Little Secrets - Whodunnit Dagger Rob McInroy Barvick Falls - Historical Dagger sponsored by Morgen Witzel in honour of Dr. Marilyn Livingstone. Michael Wood Waiting Short Story Dagg...

Season 10. Episode 6. #OnTheSofaWithVictoria  AMANDA PROWSE (15 Minutes) Amanda has published 45 books in a decade and discusses her unique way of writing complete stories in her head before committing a word to paper. While ELEANOR RAY [Elizabeth Mundy] (Everything is Beautiful) shares her more methodical approach to writing, particularly how having young children influences your writing style. R...

Season 10. Episode 5. #OnTheSofaWithVictoria  Ruth Mancini (The Stranger on the Stairs) & Susan Barrett (All Cats are Grey) discuss how they use real crimes as inspiration for thier writing. Recommended - Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Crossing to Safety Wallace Stegner Victoria Selman is a Sunday Times and Amazon Charts #1 bestselling thriller author. She has written a number of cri...

Season 10. Episode 4. #OnTheSofaWithVictoria  Maz Evans (Who Let the Dogs Out) & Luke Bateman (award-winning composer) discuss turning a novel into a musical. Recommended - Luke: Simply the Quest by Maz Evans. Maz: East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Victoria Selman is a Sunday Times and Amazon Charts #1 bestselling thriller author. She has written a number of critically acclaimed novels including...

Season 10. Episode 3. #OnTheSofaWithVictoria  Garry Disher (The Paul Hirsch series) and Dom Nolan (White City) discuss location as character.  Recommended: WILLIAM TREVOR, ALICE MONRO, ROBERT PENN WARREN, JOHN LE CARRÉ TINKER TAILOR, CORMAC MCCARTHY, ELMORE LEONARD. Victoria Selman is a Sunday Times and Amazon Charts #1 bestselling thriller author. She has written a number of critically acclaimed...

Season 10 Episode 2: Anna Bailey & Tariq Ashkanani #OnTheSofaWithVictoria Anna Bailey (The Tall Bones) & Tariq Ashkanani (The Hollow Boys) discuss the importance of character development over plot in mystery writing.  Recommended Annie Proulx Close Range and Watchmen Alan Moore. Victoria Selman is a Sunday Times and Amazon Charts #1 bestselling thriller author. She has written a number of...

Season 10, Episode One:  Industry Experts: Jack Butler (publisher) & Barbara Poelle (agent) #OnTheSofawithVictoria   Jack Butler, publishing director at Sphere Little Brown, and Barbara Powell, founder of One Word Literary, discuss comparative publishing trends in the UK and US. Victoria Selman is a Sunday Times and Amazon Charts #1 bestselling thriller author. She has written a number of crit...

ANDREA MARA chats with Paul about her new psychological thriller SUCH A NICE GIRL, redundancy-serendipity, sisters, friends and family, TV and All Her Fault. SUCH A NICE GIRL : The morning after a glamorous, luxury wedding, you and your best friend go to wake your twenty-four-year-old daughters. You open the door to their shared room in the pool-house and find a lamp smashed on the floor, a blood...

Matthew Carr chats to Paul Burke about his latest historical crime thriller THE EMPEROR OF SEVILLE , Bernardo de Mendoza, sixteenth century Spain, Terrorism, financial thrillers and white ruff crime. The Emperor of Seville : Summer 1586. When the Genoese banker Sandro Grandoni is murdered at a trade fair in the Castilian town of Medina del Campo, the Valladolid Chancery appoints the magistrate Ber...

Paul Burke looks at new releases on the screen and fiction for April, 2026.  TV/Streaming Tehran - Amazon The Capture - BBC Gone - ITVx Hidden Assets - BBC Books: Letter to My Judge - George Simenon, Penguin Classics  One of Your Number LJ Shepherd (identified as Laura in the show but publishes as LJ Shepherd, apologies for the mistake). Pushkin Vertigo The Orphanage by the Lake -Daniel G Miller,...

ANTONIA SENIOR chats to Paul about her new history of the Cambridge Five STALIN'S APLOSTLES , Albania, radio games, spy rings, Burgess, Philby, Maclean, Cairncross and Blunt.   STALIN'S APOSTLES is a radical new look at the way five people allowed their obsession with Communist ideology to overshadow any sense of morality or decency - or loyalty to their country. Why did these gilded cha...

HEIDI PERKS chats to Paul Burke about her new Psychological thriller IT ENDS HERE , getting published, rejections and bestsellers,  It Ends Here - You are one of five strangers whose day will start with the worst phone call imaginable. Your loved one is in danger. They are part of a group trapped in a café in a sleepy marina town. The young barista on the early shift The bestselling novelist looki...

Samantha Dooey-Miles chats to Paul Burke about her debut thriller UNDER THE HAMMER , satire, the housing crisis, daytime TV, para-social relationships, marketing, stalkers, rage and humour. UNDER THE HAMMER Jemma would kill to end the housing crisis – one landlord at a time… Jemma has lost everything... Well, the very little she had. Her toxic boyfriend has run off with her best friend, leaving Je...

NEIL LANCASTER chats to Paul about his new police thriller The Dark Heart , DS Max Cragie, Scottish crime fiction, Max Connor, a love of spies, James Herriot and useful idiots.  THE DARK HEART : A DEADLY BOMBING - When renowned author Dr. Daniel Solomon is killed in a devastating explosion in York, authorities quickly attribute the attack to Islamic extremists. But as the investigation unfolds, it...

New crime fiction reviews for march 2026 by Paul Burke.  The Harvey Girl Dana Stabenov Beattie Cavendish and the Highland Hideaway Mary-Jane Riley  Stephen Leather Underdogs  Sharks Simone Buchholz trans. Rachel Ward Paper Sisters Rachel Canwell Glitz Elmore Leonard  Reaper Vanda Symon The Dangerous Stranger Simon Mason  Paul Burke is editor of Aspects of Crime and Crime Time FM, his first book  S...

NADINE MATHESON chats to Paul Burke about her new crime thriller THE SHADOW CARVER , being the Chair of the CWA. serial killers, fraudsters, hurricanes in Grenada and troublesome domestic appliances. THE SHADOW CARVER : A killer who cuts straight to the bone … A CHILLING MURDER.  When a convicted killer is released and later found brutally murdered, DI Henley and the Serial Crimes Unit are pulled...

Howard Linskey chats to Paul about is new novel Muse Of Fire , love of Shakespeare, Heydrich, the SOE, the Globe, London - population 200,000! Picking up a theatre and moving it across the river.  Muse of Fire : William Shakespeare is moving up in the world, his name respected both at court and the theatre. Accepted by Queen Elizabeth, he is trusted to write plays for her, so long as she likes the...

Tracy Sierra chats to Paul Burke about her new Psychological thriller Warning Signs , true crime, tragedy through a lens, Nightwatching, place, James Joyce, danger least expected. Warning Signs : There’s something out there in the darkness. By morning, bones lie in the snow, picked clean. Zach knows the moods of the mountains – his mother taught him before she was gone. His father and the other me...

Louise Welsh chats to Paul about her new novel The CUT UP, Rilke, Glasgow, Scottish PEN, The Cutting Pen, academia and being decent people. THE CUT UP: It's hard to be good when living is expensive. And times are tough on the streets these days. Luckily for Rilke at Bowery Auctions the demand for no-questions-asked cash is at an all-time high, and business is booming. When Rilke hears his old...

SIMON BECKETT chats to Paul Burke about his new Dr. David Hunter novel THE BONE GARDEN , writing series fiction as standalones, the psychological, gothic thriller, The Chemistry of Death on TV and anniversaries - good or a bad thing? THE BONE GARDEN : Driving through the mountains in a fierce winter storm, David Hunter is forced to seek shelter at a remote village. But a one-night stop-over at the...

MALCOLM KEMPT chats to Paul Burke about A GIFT BEFORE DYING , the Arctic, Inuit culture, reading outside your genre and handing out guns to prisoners. A GIFT BEFORE DYING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, CAN JUSTICE STILL BE FOUND? After a botched high-profile murder investigation, Sergeant Elderick Cole is exiled to the remote, rugged landscape of Nunavut, a vast territory in the Arctic Circle known for...

BRIAN PRICE chats to Paul Burke about FATAL SHOT , Mel Cotton, Chemistry, Biology and the Science of Crime, Terry Pratchett and common science mistakes by crime writers. Fatal Shot : Pleasure or murder? Was journalist Jenny Pike seeking extreme pleasure or was she murdered? Mexton police and her partner are suspicious. Things just don't add up. Who would want Jenny killed and why? If she was...

SEASON 9 - EPISODE 5: SIR IAN RANKIN (John Rebus) & MARK BILLINGHAM (Tom Thorne) discuss the perks and pitfalls of series fiction & what they might have done differently if they had their time again. Desert Island books: The Maltese Falcon - Raymond Chandler, Tune In - Mark Lewishon , The Prime of Miss Jean Brody - Muriel Spark, Bleak House - Charles Dickens, Rivals - Jilly Cooper . VICTOR...

Joel Nedecky chats to Paul Burke about his new noir novel THE BROKEN DETECTIVE, Jake Joelsen, Winnipeg, noir spirit, teaching, social critique and family. THE BROKEN DETECTIVE Private investigator Jake Joelsen is going to prison for assaulting his sick mom's abusive boyfriend, but thanks to a suspended sentence, he has two weeks to earn as much money as possible so he can financially support...