Murder by the Book: A Celebration of 20th Century British Crime Fiction

 Murder by the Book: A Celebration of 20th Century 

British Crime Fiction

23 March – 24 August 2024

Monday – Friday 9am – 6:30pm

Saturday 9am – 4:30pm

Closed Sundays, and 29 March to 1 April 2024 inclusive 

Booking is essential. Entry is FREE.

Crime fiction is the UK's most read, bought and borrowed genre. Cambridge University Library draws on its world-leading collections of British crime fiction to stage a murderously good exhibition! 

Bringing together literature, culture and heritage, Murder by the Book: A Celebration of 20th Century British Crime Fiction illuminates and celebrates the stories of the UK’s most popular fiction writing. Curated by award-winning crime novelist Nicola Upson, the Library's exhibition challenges traditional distinctions between literary fiction and genre fiction. Murder by the Book examines crime’s place in our literary history and the Library’s own Special Collections. 

The exhibition showcases rare books and audio-visual recordings looking at the genre from its origins in the works of Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens to contemporary best-sellers Val McDermid and Ian Rankin. 

With first editions of The Moonstone and Bleak House, as well as Sherlock Holmes' debut appearance, the exhibition also looks at the Library’s remarkable collections and stylish dust jackets that represent more than a century of British book design. 

Tickets can be booked here.

Curated by crime novelist Nicola Upson.

Crime and Nourishment 2023

 

Oleander is delighted to be joining forces with Richard Reynolds to bring you an exciting crime fiction event featuring 8 brilliant local authors.

Each of our authors will be taking the stage and speaking about their latest book releases, answering questions from the audience and all will be signing their books for attendees.

The authors' books will  be on sale at the event and complimentary tea and cake will be served.

Come along and have a fun afternoon with your favourite authors and buy some Christmas gifts (even if they're for yourself!)

Richard is well-known locally as the recently-retired Crime Specialist at the world-famous Cambridge bookseller Heffers. He is also Chair of the CWA Gold Dagger Award.

The Oleander Press has been the other Cambridge publisher since 1960.Oleander is delighted to be joining forces with Richard Reynolds to bring you an exciting crime fiction event featuring 8 brilliant local authors.

Each of our authors will be taking the stage and speaking about their latest book releases, answering questions from the audience and all will be signing their books for attendees.

The authors' books will  be on sale at the event and complimentary tea and cake will be served.

Come along and have a fun afternoon with your favourite authors and buy some Christmas gifts (even if they're for yourself!)

Richard is well-known locally as the recently-retired Crime Specialist at the world-famous Cambridge bookseller Heffers. He is also Chair of the CWA Gold Dagger Award.

The Oleander Press has been the other Cambridge publisher since 1960.

Tickets can be bought here.

2023 CWA Debut Dagger Competition Opens for Entries

 

The most hotly contended competition for would-be crime novelists is now open for entries.

Aspiring crime novelists have until the end of February 2023 to enter the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Debut Dagger, renowned for opening doors for new writers.

Shortlisted authors often get representation by literary agents, with some going on to achieve publication deals.

The competition for the best new voices in the genre has been going for over 20 years and helped launch the careers of established crime writers, including M W Craven, who entered in 2013.

Craven went on to win the CWA 2019 Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year for The Puppet Show, and more recently the 2022 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Dead Ground.

M W Craven said that, “The CWA Debut Dagger competition gave me a career. I can draw a direct evolutionary line from being shortlisted to the two-book deal I signed.” The decision to take a week off work and write 3000 words for the competition he said, “would go on to change my life.”

Created in 1955, the CWA Daggers are the oldest and most regarded awards in the genre, and for over two decades the CWA has been encouraging new writing with its Debut Dagger competition for unpublished writers.

The Debut Dagger is awarded every year by the CWA for the opening of a crime novel and a synopsis. Budding authors are invited to submit the opening 3,000 words and a synopsis of the full novel of up to 1,500 words before the competition deadline of Tuesday 28 February, 2023.

Maxim Jakubowski, Chair of the CWA, said: “The winner of the Debut Dagger receives £500, but the main motivation to enter is that shortlisting ensures that your work will be brought to the attention of leading agents and top editors, who have to date signed up over two dozen winners and shortlisted Debut Dagger competitors.”

Submissions are judged using a range of criteria including quality of prose, originality of plot, execution of plot, narrative voice, plausibility, characterisation, setting evocation, and good read factor.

From the hundreds of entries from around the world, around a dozen will be longlisted in April 2023. Longlisted authors are asked to submit a further 3,000 words from their novel. The shortlist is announced at CrimeFest in May 2023, and the winner at the Daggers event held in early July.

Judges comprise top crime fiction editors and literary agents, as well as bestselling author, Leigh Russell, who chairs the Debut Dagger competition.

The competition is only open to writers who have never had a publishing contract for fiction over 20,000 words, or self-published fiction more recently than February 2018. Authors of published short stories are eligible, as are authors of published non-fiction.

Also now open for entries is the annual CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition. Entrants have until Tuesday 28 February 2023 to enter.

The Margery Allingham Society, set up to honour and promote the writings of the great Golden Age author, works with the CWA to run the writing competition. Submissions have a limit of 3,500 words and stories must pay homage to the author’s definition of a mystery. The winner is awarded £500 and two passes to CrimeFest the following year.

Dea Parkin, Secretary of the CWA and competitions co-ordinator, said: “Crime continues to dominate as a fiction genre, and whether it’s celebrity authors such as Richard Osman or established, much-loved writers such as Elly Griffiths who make the headlines, crime and mystery stories are a key touchstone now for publishers. This short story competition is a fantastic way of developing your crime-writing craft and raising your profile.”

Whether you’re writing suspenseful psychological noir, historical crime or traditional whodunnits, the trend has resulted in hit books in the genre from authors such as Nicola Upson, Martin Edwards and Vaseem Khan.

Dea added: “These stories provide familiarity and comfort in an uncertain world as they offer clues, great characters and locations, with the mystery solved in the end and justice served.”

For writing tips, case studies of shortlisted and winning Debut Dagger entrants, and full details on how to enter both writing competitions, go to https://thecwa.co.uk/awards-and-competitions. To receive a regular enewsletter in the run-up to the deadline, join the Debuts https://thecwa.co.uk/supporting-crime-writing/join-the-debuts

Partners in Crime by Nicola Upson

There was something a while back on Twitter that got me thinking - one of those polls where you put contrasting crime writers together to see what a collaboration of their work might look like. Although it wasn’t listed as one of the options, the combination that instantly sprang to mind was Josephine Tey and Margery Allingham - now that’s a book I would love to read. 

Tey and Allingham admired each other’s work and were roughly contemporary, with their first detective novels appearing a year apart: Allingham’s The White Cottage Mystery in 1928 and Tey’s The Man in the Queue (published under her Gordon Daviot pseudonym) in 1929. As far as I’m aware, the two never met in real life, although Tey spent a lot of time in Essex, where Allingham lived. But that’s the beauty of fiction - things that you wish for can happen, and although they don’t go as far as collaborating on a novel in Dear Little Corpses, a chance meeting starts a lasting friendship, and they attempt to solve a crime that touches them both. I really can’t remember a time when I’ve had such fun in bringing two characters together.

They are, of course, very different writers, with contrasting styles - although both write beautifully. Their heroes - Albert Campion and Alan Grant - are much loved but very different men; and whereas Tey often referred in letters to periods of unashamed idleness, Allingham came from a ‘fiction factory’ of professional writers and had published more than eight million words by the time she was thirty-five. But the things they have in common are even more obvious: a deep love of the English countryside, expressed so tellingly in their books; an excitement for London and a passion for theatre (they could easily have met over a gin and tonic in the foyer of the Old Vic); and a fascination with crimes from real life, which filter into novels like The Franchise Affair, The Daughter of Time and The China Governess. 

Most importantly, though, Tey and Allingham share a wit and humanity which is very present in their work: part of the reason we love their books, I think, is because we love them. In each case, the voice that springs so vividly from these pages is wonderful company, and their books reward continued rereading in a way that very few crime novels do. I’m often asked how this series started, and the simplest answer is probably this: I wanted to get to know Tey better, to spend time with her beyond that small but perfectly formed collection of eight crime novels - nine if you count Kif.

And that’s another thing that she and Allingham have in common - they each addressed a world war through a book that was out of character with the rest of their work. Kif (also published in 1929 as Daviot) is Tey’s unflinching account of a boy’s struggle to find his place in society when he returns from fighting in the trenches. The Oaken Heart - Allingham’s only work of non-fiction, published in 1941 - is the story of an English village during the early days of the second world war. The village in question is Tolleshunt D’Arcy in Essex (more famous now for the Bamber murders at White House Farm, which lies on its outskirts) and the book has a cast of characters every bit as rich as Allingham’s novels. As much as I love her fiction, The Oaken Heart is my favourite of her books, and its candour and insight were a huge influence on Dear Little Corpses. She gave me my title, too, which is taken from one of her letters, quoted in Julia Jones’s wonderful biography, The Adventures of Margery Allingham.

At the time this book is set, Tey and Allingham still had their finest work ahead of them. I have no doubt that they’ll team up again further down the series, and I’m looking forward to it already.

Dear Little Corpses by Nicola Upson is published by Faber. (Out Now)

It takes a village to bury a child.1 September, 1939. As the mass evacuation takes place across Britain, thousands of children leave London for the countryside, but when a little girl vanishes without trace, the reality of separation becomes more desperate and more deadly for those who love her. In the chaos and uncertainty of war, Josephine struggles with the prospect of change. As a cloud of suspicion falls across the small Suffolk village she has come to love, the conflict becomes personal, and events take a dark and sinister turn.

Books to Look Forward to from Faber & Faber

 February 2022

The case was closed. Everyone in Adalen remembers the summer Lina Stavred went missing. At first, the investigation seemed like a dead end: there was no body, no crime scene, no murder weapon. The records were sealed. Then a local boy confessed to Lina's murder. The case opened a wound - one the whole community has spent over two decades trying to heal. But we know you remember. Now Lina's murderer has reappeared, and detective Eira Sjoedin must face the spectre of his brutal crime. This is her chance to untangle years of well-kept secrets - but the truth is something Adalen would rather forget. We Know You Remember is by Tove Alsterdal.

When Ghosts Come Home is by Wiley Cash. An abandoned plane. A dead body. A small town threatening to explode. 'A searing, thunderous, heartbreaking thriller. Wiley Cash has talent to burn.' Chris Whitaker Winston did not hear it so much as feel it as it passed over their house and into the trees across the waterway. The sheriff struggling for re-election and haunted by his past. The mystery plane which crash-lands on his island. The daughter returning home to hide from her troubles. The FBI pilot sent in to help. As the mystery of the abandoned plane and the dead body stokes long-simmering racial tensions, a moment of reckoning draws ever closer for the town of Oak Island.

March 2022

Nine Lives is by Peter Swanson. If you're on the list you're marked for death. The envelope is unremarkable. There is no return address. It contains a single, folded, sheet of white paper. The envelope drops through the mail slot like any other piece of post. But for the nine complete strangers who receive it - each of them recognising just one name, their own, on the enclosed list - it will be the most life altering letter they ever receive. It could also be the last, as one by one, they start to meet their end. But why?

From 'The Everyday Housewife' to 'The Cougar', 'Tricks' to 'Snowflake Time', Laura Lippman's sharp and acerbic stories explore the contemporary world and the female experience through the prism of classic crime, where the stakes are always deadly. And in the collection's longest piece, the novella 'Just One More', she follows the trajectory of a married couple who, tired of re-watching 'Columbo' re-runs during lockdown, decide to join the same dating app: 'Why would we do something like that?' 'As an experiment. And a diversion. We would both join, then see if the service matches us. Just for grins...' Seasonal Work and Other Killer Stories is by Laura Lippman.

May 2022

1 September, 1939. As the mass evacuation takes place across Britain, thousands of children leave London for the countryside, but when a little girl vanishes without trace, the reality of separation becomes more desperate and more deadly for those who love her. In the chaos and uncertainty of war, Josephine struggles with the prospect of change. As a cloud of suspicion falls across the small Suffolk village she has come to love, the conflict becomes personal, and events take a dark and sinister turn. Blending a Golden Age mystery with the timeless fears of a child's abduction, Dear Little Corpses by Nicola Upson is an atmospheric snapshot of England in the early days of war.

Murder Will Out at Cambridge

A Day of Crime, Thriller and Mystery Fiction

Saturday 14th March 2020​ 

at The Old Library, Emmanuel College

We're very much looking forward to hosting another day devoted to crime, thriller and mystery fiction, and hope you will come along to hear from these fantastic authors. Here's the full line-up (pun intended)!

The Difficult Second Book? with Stephanie Austin, Lesley Kara & Gytha Lodge.

Location, Location, Location: Stories with a Strong Sense of Place with Alison Bruce, Elly Griffiths, Christina James & Caro Ramsay.

Are These Authors Good or Bad? with Deepa Anappara, Mick Finlay, Sam Lloyd & Caro Ramsay.

Caught in Time: historical crime panel with Christopher Fowler & Nicola Upson.

Going For Gold - CWA Gold Dagger Winners with Steve Cavanagh & MW Craven.

There will be a pop-up bookshop at the event and the authors will be signing copies of their books after their panel slot.

Tickets are priced at £28 and can be purchased here or, by calling 01223 463200 or in person at Heffers bookshop.

2018 CWA Dagger Shortlists

On Wednesday 26 July at Daunts bookshop the 2018 CWA Dagger Shortlists were announced. Congratulations to all the nominated authors.

The long list can be found here.

Gold Dagger

The Liar by Steve Cavanagh (Orion)

London Rules by Mick Herron (John Murray)

Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane (Little Brown)

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke (Serpent’s Tail)

A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)

Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic (Pushkin Vertigo)

The CWA Historical Dagger
A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)
Lightning Men by Thomas Mullen (Little Brown)
Money in the Morgue by Ngaio Marsh & Stella Duffy (HarperCollins)
Fire by L. C. Tyler (Constable)

Nine Lessons by Nicola Upson (Faber & Faber)
Nucleus by Rory Clements (Zaffre Publishing)

The CWA International Dagger 
Zen and the Art of Murder by Oliver Bottini tr. Jamie Bulloch (MacLehose)
Three Days and a Life by Pierre Lemaitre tr. Frank Wynne (MacLehose)
After the Fire by Henning Mankell tr. Marlaine Delargy (Harvill Secker)
The Frozen Woman by Jon Michelet tr. Don Bartlett (No Exit Press)
Offering to the Storm by Dolores Redondo tr. Nick Caistor & Lorenza Garzía, (HarperCollins)
The Accordionist by Fred Vargas tr. Sian Reynolds (Harvill Secker)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger

London Rules by Mick Herron (John Murray Publishers)
If I Die Before I Wake by Emily Koch (Harvill Secker)
Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke (Serpent’s Tail)
An Act of Silence by Colette McBeth (Wildfire)
The Chalk Man by C J Tudor (Michael Joseph)
The Force by Don Winslow (HarperFiction)

The CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger
Gravesend by William Boyle (No Exit Press)
I.Q by Joe Ide (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Girl In Snow by Danya Kukafka (Picador)
Lola by Melissa Scrivner Love (Point Blank)
East Of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman (HQ)
Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic Pushkin Vertigo

The CWA Short Story Dagger 
The Last Siege of Bothwell Castle by Chris Brookmyre from Bloody Scotland ( Historic Environment Scotland)
Second Son by Lee Child from No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Stories(Bantam Press)
Smoking Kills by Erin Kelly from “The Body” Killer Women Crime Club Anthology 2 Edited by Susan Opie (Killer Women Ltd)
Nemo Me Impune Lacessit by Denise Mina from Bloody Scotland (Historic Environment Scotland)
Accounting for Murder by Christine Poulson from Mystery Tour: CWA Anthology of Short Stories Edited by Martin Edwards (Orenda Books)

CWA Debut Dagger

The Eternal Life of Ezra Ben Simeon by Bill Crotty

The Last Googling of Beth Bailly by Luke Melia

Riverine Blood by Joseph James

Original Sins by Linda McLaughlin

Trust Me, I’m Dead by Sherryl Clark

CWA ALCS Gold Dagger For Non-Fiction

Black Dahlia Red Rose by Piu Eatwell (Coronet)                                              

 Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (Simon & Schuster)            

 Blood on the Page by Thomas Harding (Heinemann

The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Mariano-Lesnevich (Macmillan)

A False Report by Christian Miller & Ken Armstrong (Hutchinson)

Rex V Edith Thompson by Laura Thompson (Head of Zeus)

CWA Dagger In The Library 
Selected by nominations from libraries.
Martin Edwards
Nicci French
Simon Kernick
Edward Marston
Peter May
Rebecca Tope

The winners of the CWA Daggers will be announced at the Dagger Awards dinner in London on 25 October, for which tickets are now available. Visit www.thecwa.co.uk for more information or emailadmin@thecwa.co.uk .

Books to Look Forward to From Faber and Faber

July 2017

In Wild Thyme, Pennsylvania, Officer Henry Farrell's life is getting complicated. Widowed and more traumatised than he cares to admit, he is caught up in an affair with a local woman, and with helping out his friend's barn construction job - on which the clock is ticking. When a troubled old acquaintance of theirs becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of his girlfriend, it becomes increasingly clear that something seriously dark is at large in the woods that surround them. Against this old and strange landscape - where silence rules - a fascinating and troubling case ensues, as Henry struggles for his very survival. Fateful Mornings is by Tom Bouman.

Walk in Silence is by John Gordon Sinclair.  Find the boy. Bring him home. Keep him safe. Keira Lynch is a lawyer who's used to trouble, but she's only just landed in Albania, and already, she's neck deep. She thought money would help her find the boy, in an underworld where bribes are as common as bent cops, but his kidnappers want something else. They want the freedom of one of their gang members. A man Keira is about to help bring to trial back in the UK; a man who once put three bullets in her chest. Can she stay silent, and save the boy? Or will she have to play the game in a brutal world where anything can be bartered - trust, loyalty, even lives?

What really happened to Sarah Cook? A beautiful blonde teenager, Sarah Cook disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend Brad Stockton - black and from the wrong side of the tracks - was convicted of the murders and sits on death row, though he always maintained his innocence. As his execution nears, his devoted sister, insisting she has spotted Sarah at a local gas station, hires PI Roxane Weary to look at this cold case. Reeling from the recent death of her cop father, Roxane is drawn to the story of Sarah's disappearance, especially when she suspects a link between it and one of her father's unsolved murder cases. Despite her self-destructive tendencies, Roxane starts to hope that she can save Brad's life and her own. The Last Place You Look is by Kristen Lepionka.

Kitty Peck and the Daughter of Sorrow is by Kate Griffin.  Summer 1881: the streets of Limehouse are thick with opium...and menace. At eighteen Kitty Peck has inherited Paradise, a sprawling criminal empire on the banks of the Thames. Determined to do things differently to her fearsome grandmother, she now realises that the past casts a long and treacherous shadow. Haunted by a terrible secret and stalked by a criminal cabal intent on humiliation and destruction, Kitty must fight for the future of everyone she cares for...

August 2017

The Girl in Green is by Derek B Miller and takes us deep into modern Iraq, where British journalist Thomas Benton and relief worker Marta Strom are persuaded by ex-US soldier Arwood Hobbes to embark on what may be a fools' errand in a last-chance effort to atone for their failure to save a local girl more than twenty years previously, following Operation Desert Storm. Set against the shattered landscape and broken heart of Iraq. 

Former Army Ranger Van Shaw is recently single, out of money, and struggling to keep on the straight and narrow. So when an old contact, Mick O’Hassan, shows up on his doorstep, fresh out of prison and claiming to know the whereabouts of a hidden stash of gold, Van feels the powerful pull of his past. The trouble is, some things are too good to be true, and before they know it Van and O’Hassan are trapped in a game with few rules and too many deadly players. Turns out, the only easy part of a life of crime is getting sucked back in . . .  Every Day Above Ground is by Glen Erik Hamilton.

September 2017

A Patient Fury is by Sarah Ward.  When Detective Constable Connie Childs is dragged from her bed to the fire-wrecked property on Cross Farm Lane she knows as she steps from the car that this house contains death. Three bodies discovered - a family obliterated - their deaths all seem to point to one conclusion: One mother, one murderer. But D.C. Childs, determined as ever to discover the truth behind the tragedy, realises it is the fourth body - the one they cannot find - that holds the key to the mystery at Cross Farm Lane. What Connie Childs fails to spot is that her determination to unmask the real murderer might cost her more than her health - this time she could lose the thing she cares about most: her career.

October 2017

Nine Lessons is by Nicola Upson.  In the years before the Great War, M. R. James told ghost stories by candlelight to a handful of friends and scholars. Now, twenty-five years later, those men are dying, killed off one by one . . . In contemporary Cambridge, the people of the town are gripped by fear and suspicion as a serial rapist stalks the streets. In the shadow of King’s College Chapel, Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose faces some of the most horrific and audacious murders of his career.

Murder under the Mistletoe at Heffers Bookshop

Join Heffers bookshop on 10th December for an evening of literary mystery and murder, with a hand picked selection of authors including Susan Grossey, Charlot King, Mike Ripley, Nicola Upson, Mandy Morton, Suzette Hill, Mark Ellis, Miranda Carter, Alison Bruce, Michelle Spring and Kate Rhodes.

Come along for a convivial evening and the opportunity to stock up on some signed books - and perhaps some Christmas gifts!

Your ticket includes a murderous cocktail (soft drinks also available).

Tickets are available from here.

Where:-        

Heffers Bookshop

20 Trinity Street, Cambridge CB2 1TY

Time:-

Thursday, 10 December 2015 from 18:30 to 20:00 (GMT)

Heffers Crime Fiction Events for July 2015

July 8th at 6.30pm: An evening with Robert Goddard celebrating the launch of his latest novel, The Ends of The Earth, the third in the bestselling adventure trilogy, The Wide World.

July 1919: ex Flying Ace, James "Max" Maxted attempt to uncover the secret behind the death of his father, Sir Henry Maxted, murdered whilst serving as an adviser with the British delegation to the Paris peace conference, has seemingly ended in failure - and his own death.

If you are unable to attend the event but would like to reserve a signed copy please email your request to events@heffers.co.uk

  

 

July 16th at 6.30pm. What's Your Poison"

You are warmly invited to join us at our Crime Fiction Summer Party "What's Your Poison" on July 16th fom 6.30pm at Heffers Bookshop, 20 Trinity Street, Cambridge:

Authors participating include: Nicola Upson, Mandy Morton, Mike Ripley, BK Duncan, Susan Grossey, Peter Murphy, Jeremy Cameron, Kate Rhodes, Peter Lovesey, Timothy Williams, Emily Winslow, Len Tyler, Barbara Cleverly, Janet Neel and others.

Drinks will also be served and there will be a goody bag for each guest.  join them for an (unpoisoned!) drink and an evening of literary murder and mystery.

Tickets are £6 and can be purchased at: 

https: // whatsyourpoison.eventbrite.co.uk