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.

Recommended: The Lemony Snicket series. The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald.

Mentions: See the Stars Eleanor Ray, Will You Remember Me Amanda Prowse.

Victoria Selman is a Sunday Times and Amazon Charts #1 bestselling thriller author. She has written a number of critically acclaimed novels including the hit Ziba MacKenzie series and Truly Darkly Deeply which was a Spring 2023 Richard & Judy Book Club pick.

Victoria has been shortlisted for the ThrillZone Award, 2025, the Fingerprint Thriller of the Year Award, 2023, CWA Short Story Dagger, 2022 and CWA Debut Dagger, 2017 and longlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award, 2023.

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS

Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com

Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

Instagram: @VictoriaSelmanAuthor

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,  

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 critically acclaimed novels including the hit Ziba MacKenzie series and Truly Darkly Deeply which was a Spring 2023 Richard & Judy Book Club pick.

Victoria has been shortlisted for the ThrillZone Award, 2025, the Fingerprint Thriller of the Year Award, 2023, CWA Short Story Dagger, 2022 and CWA Debut Dagger, 2017 and longlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award, 2023.

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS

Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com

Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

Instagram: @VictoriaSelmanAuthor

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,  

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 the hit Ziba MacKenzie series and Truly Darkly Deeply which was a Spring 2023 Richard & Judy Book Club pick.

Victoria has been shortlisted for the ThrillZone Award, 2025, the Fingerprint Thriller of the Year Award, 2023, CWA Short Story Dagger, 2022 and CWA Debut Dagger, 2017 and longlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award, 2023.

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS

Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com

Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

Instagram: @VictoriaSelmanAuthor

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,  

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 novels including the hit Ziba MacKenzie series and Truly Darkly Deeply which was a Spring 2023 Richard & Judy Book Club pick.

Victoria has been shortlisted for the ThrillZone Award, 2025, the Fingerprint Thriller of the Year Award, 2023, CWA Short Story Dagger, 2022 and CWA Debut Dagger, 2017 and longlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award, 2023.

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS

Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com

Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

Instagram: @VictoriaSelmanAuthor

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,  

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 critically acclaimed novels including the hit Ziba MacKenzie series and Truly Darkly Deeply which was a Spring 2023 Richard & Judy Book Club pick.

Victoria has been shortlisted for the ThrillZone Award, 2025, the Fingerprint Thriller of the Year Award, 2023, CWA Short Story Dagger, 2022 and CWA Debut Dagger, 2017 and longlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award, 2023.

Recommended Mary Oliver poetry, The House of Leaves Mark Z Danielewski, Heated Rivalry Rachel Reid, Project Hail Mary Andy Weir, Dorty 20 Bill Schweigart

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS

Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com

Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

Instagram: @VictoriaSelmanAuthor

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,  

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 critically acclaimed novels including the hit Ziba MacKenzie series and Truly Darkly Deeply which was a Spring 2023 Richard & Judy Book Club pick.

Victoria has been shortlisted for the ThrillZone Award, 2025, the Fingerprint Thriller of the Year Award, 2023, CWA Short Story Dagger, 2022 and CWA Debut Dagger, 2017 and longlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award, 2023.

Recommended Mary Oliver poetry, The House of Leaves Mark Z Danielewski, Heated Rivalry Rachel Reid, Project Hail Mary Andy Weir, Dorty 20 Bill Schweigart

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS

Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com

Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

Instagram: @VictoriaSelmanAuthor

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,  

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 stain on the carpet, a ringing phone - and both girls are nowhere to be seen.
The police come and you discover something shocking. Something inexplicable. Is one of your daughters trying to kill the other? And that’s when you and your best friend begin to unravel what's really going on between the girls.
You need to work together to find your daughters, testing your friendship to its limits. And you can’t help but wonder: which girl is the killer and which is the victim?

Andrea Mara is a crime novelist from Dublin, Ireland, where she lives with her husband and three children. It Should Have Been You was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller in the UK, and an Irish Times number one bestseller in Ireland. Her 2024 novel, Someone In The Attic, was a number one bestseller on Kindle and spent ten weeks in the Irish Times bestseller charts. The paperback was a UK Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Her 2023 book, No One Saw A Thing was a Sunday Times, Irish Times and Kindle Number 1 bestseller. Hide And Seek (July 2022) spent five weeks in the Irish Times bestseller charts and was shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the year at the A Post Irish Book Awards. All Her Fault (July 2021) was Sunday Times Crime Novel of the Month, a Sunday Times and Irish Times Top Ten Bestseller, and Kindle Top Five bestseller. It was shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year in the A Post Irish Book Awards and has been adapted for TV, starring Sarah Snook (Succession) and Dakota Fanning (Ripley). Her first book, The Other Side of the Wall, was shortlisted for the Kate O'Brien Award 2018 and was an Amazon number one bestseller in Irish Crime.

SUCH A NICE GIRL IS PUBLISHED 7/5 

Recommended: Araminta Hall Unreliable Narrator

Paul Burke is the editor of Aspects of Crime and Crime Time FM. His first book Spies on Screen From Silent to Streaming will be published in September.

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,  

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 Bernardo de Mendoza to conduct the investigation.
The murder takes place at a delicate political moment. King Philip II is preparing to invade England, and the Crown is negotiating a new loan with the House of Grandoni to help finance the invasion. While the king and his ministers await the arrival of the imperial treasure fleet in Seville, one of Grandoni’s partners is murdered on the banks of the Guadalquivir.
Anxious to eliminate any obstacles to the ‘enterprise of England’, Philip sends Mendoza to Seville to see if the murders are connected.
Accompanied by his restless ward Gabriel, and a charismatic poet named Miguel de Cervantes, Mendoza travels to the violent, vice-ridden imperial city that sixteenth century Spaniards called ‘the Great Babylon.’
Mendoza soon finds himself entangled a bewildering web of intrigue and corruption, that extends from the Indies to the Seville streets. In an unfamiliar city where no one can be trusted, Mendoza is forced to seek the assistance of his turbulent cousin, Luis de Ventura.
Mendoza’s task is further complicated, when his lover Elena unexpectedly arrives in the city with an Italian theatre group.
Throughout the sweltering Andalusian summer, Mendoza follows the trail of deaths, as the search for justice becomes a struggle for survival, in which no one’s life is guaranteed.

Matthew Carr: is a journalist and writer of Non-fiction and Fiction. His latest novel is The Emperor of Seville, he is working on the next in the Bernardo de Mendoza series. 

Matthew Carr titles - Blood and Faith, The Infernal Machine, Black Sun Rising, The Devils of Cardona.

Recommended/mentioned: Paco Taibo III, Leonardo Sciascia, Dashiell Hammett, Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Caroline Moorehead - A Sicilian Man, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Luis Bunuel Land Without Bread

Paul Burke is the editor of Aspects of Crime and of Crime Time FM, he is a CWA Gold Dagger judge. His first book Spies on Screen: From Silent to Streaming will be published in September '26.

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,  

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, Source Books/Poison Pen

An Accidental Death - Peter Grainger, Hutchinson Heinemann 

Thornby Hall - Stephanie Bramwell-Lawes, Orenda Books

Paul Burke is the editor of Aspects of Crime and Crime Time FM, his first book Spies on Screen: From Silent to Streaming will be published in September. 

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,  

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 charming men, blessed with brains, and beauty and opportunities, choose to betray their country?
Using recently declassified files, STALIN'S APOSTLES explores as never before the treachery of Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, John Cairncross and Keeper of the Queen's Pictures Anthony Blunt, all radicalised while at Cambridge University in the 1930s. Their clandestine supply of British and US intelligence material gave Stalin an inside track on US and British decision-making until the implosion of the spy-ring in May 1951. There was barely a secret, barely a decision made, that Stalin did not know about, thanks to his Cambridge spies, and his networks in the United States. The Five became tools in Stalin's imperial scheme, responsible directly and indirectly for the death of thousands of men and women fighting against Soviet domination.

Shielded for so long by the British Establishment, four of the five were never prosecuted for their crimes. As STALIN'S APOSTLES reveals, they were exposed as much by their own incompetence as by forensic investigation by the CIA, MI5 or MI6. And in time another dictator emerged as ruthless as Stalin, but with an even greater desire to establish a Russian Empire that would threaten Western democracy. The legacy of the Cambridge Five is not only in the graveyards of eastern Europe, but at the heart of Putin's Kremlin.

Antonia Senior is a writer, critic and journalist. She has been the historical fiction reviewer at The Times newspaper for the past 14 years. Her columns and journalism have appeared in, among others, The Guardian, The Spectator, The Times.

She launched and hosted The Spymasters Podcast from 2023 to March 2026. She now podcasts as co-host of The History Book Buffs, which reviews history books and interviews authors on a range of topics, including espionage.

Antonia’s first work of non-fiction is Stalin’s Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire. ‘Outstanding.. A darkly fascinating account of an infamous spy ring.’ (Kirkus).

Antonia lives in London, with a dog and two cats. Her children would not let her name any of the pets Dzerzhinsky.

Paul Burke is editor of Aspects of Crime, presenter of Crime Time FM. His first book Spies on Screen: From Silent to Streaming will be published in September. 

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,