Crime Time FM

The Latest selection of Crime, Mystery and Thriller fiction reviewed by Paul Burke.

 The Books:
Every Trick in the Book Bernard O'Keefe (Muswell Press PB)
Gathering Storm Lynne McEwan (Canelo, PB)*
The Harlem Detectives Chester Himes intro. SA Cosby (Everyman HB)
Taken Dinuka MacKenzie (Canelo PB)
Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter Nicci French (Simon & Schuster HB)
Every smile You Fake Dorothy Koomson (Headline Review HB)
The Descent Paul E Hardisty (Orenda PB)
To the River Vikki Wakefield (No Exit Press HB)*
Point Zero Seicho Matsumoto (Bitter Lemon Press PB)  Trans, Louise Heal Kawai
The Dancer Óscar Gudmundson (Corylus PB) trans. Quentin Bates
Deep Harbour Tove Alsterdal (Faber PB) Trans. Alice Menzies
The Lagos Wife Vanessa Walters (Hutchinson Heineman HB)
Original Sins Erin Young (Hodder & Stoughton HB)
Smoke Kings Jahmal Mayfield (Melville House Press)
End of Story AJ Finn (Harper Collins, HB)
Rising Tide Alan Bardos (Sharpe PB)
Bridges to Burn  Marion Todd (Canelo PB)*
Nobody's Coming Home Alec Cizak (ABC Group Documentation PB)

*Thank you to Lynne, Vikki and Marion for thier elevator pitches.

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in 2025.

Music courtesy of  Guy Hale KILLING ME SOFTLY - MIKE ZITO featuring Kid Anderson. GUY HALE 

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,  

TONY KENT chats to Paul Burke about his new thriller THE SHADOW NETWORK, Dempsey & Devlin, Chiltern Kills, and obsessive hobby, working on TV true crime, conspiracy, the ensemble cast, the law.

THE SHADOW NETWORK How do you take down an enemy when no one believes they exist? When the lawyers of alleged war criminal Hannibal Strauss are caught up in a terror attack in The Hague, barrister Michael Devlin immediately suspects all is not what it seems. Teaming up once more with Agent Joe Dempsey, they must find who’s behind it all before any more innocent lives are lost.With their key witness on the run and assassins on their tail, their only lead is a codename: the Monk, a legendary and mysterious foreign agent with a fearsome reputation. But what is his stake in this dangerous game? And just who is part of his shadowy network of spies? Caught in a complicated web of lies, secrets and double agents, there’s no one Dempsey and Devlin can trust but themselves.

TONY KENT is a thriller writer, a criminal barrister and a former champion boxer. He writes the bestselling Joe Dempsey / Michael Devlin series of political and legal action thrillers which began in 2018 with 'Killer Intent' and continued in 2019 with 'Marked For Death', in 2020 with 'Power Play' and again in 2021 with 'No Way To Die'. The fifth book in the series - 'The Shadow Network', a bang up-to-date, torn from the news thriller set across Europe and the US and featuring the threat of Russian Intelligence and embedded covert assets, all set against the backdrop of the International Criminal Court - is out in hardback on 15th February 2024. 
In 20-plus years at the criminal Bar Tony has prosecuted and defended in some of the country’s highest-profile criminal trials. Throughout his career Tony has dealt not only with the UK government but also with Scotland Yard, the NCA, MI5 and the FBI, as well as some of the UK and Europe’s best known organised crime groups. Tony's legal practice is based in Mayfair in London. Tony also appears as a legal commentator as a criminal law specialist on a variety of television programmes including Netflix hits 'My Lover, My Killer' and 'Meet, Marry, Murder'. Tony's books have been picked for 'The Richard and Judy Book Club' and 'The Zoe Ball Book Club', as well as being 'Thriller of the Month' picks for 'The Times'.

Recommendations:
Writer: David Baldacci
Film: Oppenheimer

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in 2025.

Music courtesy of  Guy Hale KILLING ME SOFTLY - MIKE ZITO featuring Kid Anderson. GUY HALE 

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 VIDICH & CHARLES CUMMING chat to Paul Burke about their latest novels BEIRUT STATION and KENNEDY 35 respectively. The Cold War, the luminal space, inherently political.

BEIRUT STATION Lebanon, 2006. The Israel–Hezbollah war is tearing Beirut apart and the country is on the brink of chaos.
The CIA and Mossad are targeting a reclusive Hezbollah terrorist. They turn to young Lebanese-American CIA agent, Analise, who has the perfect plan. However, Analise begins to suspect that Mossad has a motive of its own.
She alerts the agency but their response is for her to drop it. Analise is now the target and there is no one she can trust.

Paul Vidich was a senior executive in the entertainment industry for over twenty years. After leaving his business career he turned to writing full time. His first novel, An Honorable Man, a Publisher’s Weekly top 10 Mystery and Thriller in 2016, was followed by The Good Assassin. The Coldest Warrior is his third novel. His essays and nonfiction have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Lithub, The Nation, CrimeReads, and elsewhere.  Beirut Station is his 6th novel.

KENNEDY 35: 1995: In the wake of the Rwandan genocide, 24-year-old spy Lachlan Kite and his girlfriend, Martha Raine, are sent to Senegal on the trail of a hunted war criminal. The mission threatens to spiral out of control, forcing Kite to make choices that will have devastating consequences not only for his career at top-secret intelligence agency BOX 88, but also for his relationship with Martha.
2023: Eric Appiah, an old friend from Kite’s days at school and an off-the-record BOX 88 asset, makes contact with explosive information about what happened all those years ago in West Africa. When tragedy strikes, Kite must use all his resources to bring down a criminal network with links to international terror … and protect Martha from possible assassination.

Charles Cumming debut A Spy by Nature (2001) announced a major new talent in the espionage field. His 10th novel Box 88 introduced Lachlan Kite, Kennedy 35 is the third novel to feature Lockie.  Charles has been described as the new le Carré.  

Recommendations David McCloskey, IS Berry, Joseph Kanon, Mick Herron, Graham Greene, Len Deighton, John le Carré.

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in 2025.

Music courtesy of  Guy Hale KILLING ME SOFTLY - MIKE ZITO featuring Kid Anderson. GUY HALE 

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,  

Former CIA analyst DAVID MCCLOSKEY chats to Paul Burke about his new exhilarating spy thriller MOSCOW X, Russia, Boyars, world views and ubiquitous technological surveillance.

MOSCOW X A daring CIA operation threatens chaos in the Kremlin.
But can Langley trust the Russian at its center?
CIA operatives Sia and Max enter Russia to recruit Vladimir Putin’s moneyman. Sia works for a London firm that conceals the wealth of the super-rich. Max’s family business in Mexico – a CIA front since the 1960s – is a farm that breeds high-end racehorses. They pose as a couple, and their targets are Vadim, Putin’s private banker, and his wife Anna, who is both a banker and an intelligence officer herself…

DAVID MCCLOSKEY is a former CIA analyst and former consultant at McKinsey & Company. While at the CIA, he worked in field stations across the Middle East and briefed senior White House officials and Arab royalty. He lives in Texas. His first novel is Damascus Station.

Recommendations
Factual: Catherine Belton - Putin's People
Literary & Action Spy thrillers: Mick Herron, John le Carré, Joseph Kanon, Daniel Silva, Brad Thor, Jack Carr, Don Bentley, David Ignatius, Paul Vidich, Charles Cumming & IS Berry

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in March, 2025.

Music courtesy of  Guy Hale KILLING ME SOFTLY - MIKE ZITO featuring Kid Anderson. GUY HALE 

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,  

Barry Forshaw, Victoria Selman and Paul Burke talk January books and look forward to some titles later in the year, crime and thriller TV for 2024, a new seductive Miss Marple, character is king, the high concept, #OnTheSofa Season 6, out to lunch...

Tim Sullivan Teacher 
Simon Mason Lost and Never Found
Seicho Matsumoto Point Zero
Agnes Ravatn The Guests
 
Dan Malakin The Wreckage of Us

Season 6 #OnTheSofa - Ellery Lloyd & Nicci French, Alex Michaelides, Lynda la Plante, Karin Slaughter, Claire McGowan and 2 booksellers on What's hot, what's not...

TV Shows for 2024: A Spy Among Friends (2023), Sleeper Train, The Sympathizer, Cleddau, Monsieur Spade, The Responder, Blue Lights, Dalgleish, Vera, Death in Paradise, The Tourist, Silent Witness, Granchester, Trigger Point, The Bay, The Day of the Jackal Ripley, Cross, Mr&Mrs Smith, Sexy Beast.

Books for 2024: Graham Bartlett City on Fire, MW Craven The Mercy Chair, Kellye Garrett Missing White Woman, Saima Mir Vengeance, Alex Michaelides The Fury, LC North Clickbait.

BARRY FORSHAW is the editor of Crime Time, author of several books on film and crime fiction and the Financial Times Crime Fiction Critic. His latest book SIMENON: the Man, the Books, the Films is released by Oldcastle Books.

VICTORIA SELMAN
SundayTimes bestselling author of ALL THE LITTLE LIARS
Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS
Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com
Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023. An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in March, 2025.

Music courtesy of  Guy Hale KILLING ME SOFTLY - MIKE ZITO featuring Kid Anderson. GUY HALE 

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,  

EMMA CHRISTIE chats to Paul about her new psychological thriller IN HER SHADOW, The Caledonian Crime Collective, Portobello, psychological thrillers, Barcelona and a new found love for old movies.

IN HER SHADOW Dave Kellock is a pillar of the community in Portobello, Edinburgh. A tireless volunteer who never misses a chance to help others, he's just been recognised on the King's Honours List.
Dave Kellock is also a fraud. A moment of panic, violence and blood twenty years ago plagues his dreams. He's been hiding himself in Portobello, terrified that his past will catch up with him. Now that his photo has been in the paper, collecting his award, the truth won't stay buried for long.
Someone is watching Dave, at every turn, even making calls from within his own house and bringing the police to his door. The clock is ticking – he needs to find who's behind this before the police find him.
When a local teenage girl goes missing, Dave is suddenly a suspect and not only is his freedom in jeopardy but her life is too. Will he find this girl? And just how is she linked to the secret he's been keeping all these years?

EMMA CHRISTIE was born and raised in a book-filled house in Cumnock, an Ayrshire coal-mining town. She spent five years working as a news reporter with one of the UK's top-selling regional daily newspapers, The Press and Journal. She lives in Barcelona with her girlfriend, Maria Jose, and their campervan, Jarry.

Shortlisted for Scottish Crime Book of The Year 2021 and Scottish Crime Debut of The Year 2021 *

For more information see www.emmachristiewriter.com or find me at @theemmachristie across all social media. For DOAD book festival see www.facebook.com/groups/diaryofadebutnovelist 

Recommendations
 AJ Finn The Woman in the Window
Eleni Kyriacou The Unspeakable Act of Zina Pavlou
Film - Rear Window Dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023.

Music courtesy of  Guy Hale KILLING ME SOFTLY - MIKE ZITO featuring Kid Anderson. GUY HALE 

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,  

GARRY DISHER chats to Craig Sisterson about his new novel Day's End, 'Hirsch', right wing extremism, stories ripped from the news, rural noir,  backpackers & blue biro.

DAY'S END: WHEN HATE RUNS DEEP, THE INNOCENT SUFFER
Constable Paul Hirschausen's rural beat in the low hills of South Australia is wide. Daybreak to day's end, dirt roads and dust. Every problem that besets small towns and isolated properties, from unlicensed driving to arson.
But now, just as Hirsch has begun to feel he knows the fragile communities under his care, the isolation and fear of the pandemic have warped them into something angry and unrecognisable. Hirsch is seeing stresses heightened and social divisions cracking wide open. His own tolerance under strain; people getting close to the edge.
Today he's driving an international visitor around: Janne Van Sant, whose backpacker son went missing while the borders were closed. They're checking out his last photo site, his last employer. A feeling that the stories don't quite add up.
Then a call comes in: a roadside fire. Nothing much - a suitcase soaked in diesel and set alight - but two noteworthy facts emerge. Janne knows more than Hirsch about forensic evidence. And the body in the suitcase is not her son's.

Garry Disher is a genre-defining writer of Australian crime fiction, hailed as 'the gold standard for rural noir' by Chris Hammer, and as 'one of Australia's finest writers' by The Times. He has published fifty titles across multiple genres, and is known as Australia's King of Crime. He has won the German Crime Prize three times and the Ned Kelly Award twice. In 2018 he received the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award.

Recommendations & mentions: Alice Munro, William Trevor, Ron Rush, Shirley Jackson. Peter Corris, Chris Hammer, Jane Harper,  Tony Hillerman.
Mick Herron, Michael Connelly & Ian Rankin.

Craig Sisterson is a features writer and crime fiction expert from New Zealand who writes for newspapers and magazines in several countries. In recent years he's interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at festivals on three continents. He's been a judge of the McIlvanney Prize and Ned Kelly Awards, and is founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards and co-founder of Rotorua Noir. He lives in London with his daughter. He is the author of  SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME: The Pocket Essentials Guide to the Crime Fiction, Film & TV of Australia & New Zealand.

Music courtesy of  Guy Hale KILLING ME SOFTLY - MIKE ZITO featuring Kid Anderson.
GUY HALE 

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,  

S5E10: LIVE recording in front of a studio audience - Victoria & Louise discuss their writing journeys, the challenge of setting books in the present day & where they get their ideas from!

LOUISE CANDLISH - THE ONLY SUSPECT: Alex lives a comfortable life with his wife Beth in the leafy suburb of Silver Vale. Fine, so he’s not the most sociable guy on the street, he prefers to keep himself to himself, but he’s a good husband and an easy-going neighbour.
That’s until Beth announces the creation of a nature trail on a local site that’s been disused for decades and suddenly Alex is a changed man. Now he’s always watching. Questioning. Struggling to hide his dread . . . 
As the landscapers get to work, a secret threatens to surface from years ago, back in Alex’s twenties when he got entangled with a seductive young woman called Marina, who threw both their lives into turmoil.
And who sparked a police hunt for a murder suspect that was never quite what it seemed. It still isn’t. 
No one else could have done it. Could they?

VICTORIA SELMAN
SundayTimes bestselling author of ALL THE LITTLE LIARS
Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3xmvMeS
Website for news and giveaways: http://www.victoriaselmanauthor.com
Twitter: @VictoriaSelman

We love to hear from our listeners! Find me on Twitter @VictoriaSelman and join in the chat using #OnTheSofaWithVictoria

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,  

JAMES NAUGHTIE & SHANE WHALEY chat to Paul THE SPY ACROSS THE WATER, the Flemyng trilogy, spy novels are all about character, James Jesus Angleton's wilderness of mirrors and Kim Philby's melancholy.

THE SPY ACROSS THE WATER We live with our history, but it can kill us.
Faces from the past appear from nowhere at a family funeral, and Will Flemyng, spy-turned-ambassador, is drawn into twin mysteries that threaten everything he holds dear.
From Washington, he's pitched back into the Troubles in Northern Ireland and an explosive secret hidden deep in the most dangerous but fulfilling friendship he has known.
And while he confronts shadowy adversaries in American streets, and looks for solace at home in the Scottish Highlands, he discovers that his government's most precious Cold War agent is in mortal danger and needs his help to survive.
In an electric story of courage and betrayal, Flemyng learns the truth that his life has left him a man with many friends, but still alone.

James Naughtie is a special correspondent for BBC News, for which he has reported from around the world. He presented Today on BBC Radio 4 for 21 years. This his third novel, and his most recent book is an account of five decades of travel and work in the United States – On the Road: American Adventures from Nixon to Trump. He lives in Edinburgh and London.

Mentions: Mick Herron, John le Carré, David Brierley, Robert Harris, Charlotte Philby, Len Deighton

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023.

Shane Whaley & Spybrary

Music courtesy of  Guy Hale KILLING ME SOFTLY - MIKE ZITO featuring Kid Anderson.
GUY HALE 

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,  

The latest crop of new crime fiction releases January 2024 reviewed by Paul Burke.

The novels featured:
Mari Hannah The Longest Goodbye *18/1
James Henry The Winter Visitors *1/2
Chris Hammer Cover the Bones *4/1
Tim Sullivan The Teacher *18/1
Ruth Mancini The Woman on the Ledge *4/1
Stephanie Sowden Directions for Dark Things *25/1
CS Robertson The Trials of Marjorie Crowe *18/1
Riley Sager The Only One Left *28/12/23
Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini trans. Gregory Dowling *25/1
Sam Blake Three Little Birds *4/1
Ashley Elston First Lie Wins *2/1
Ashley Tate Twenty Seven Minutes *1/2
Claire Coughlan Where They Lie  *1/2
Maxim Jakubowski Just a Girl and it's a Gun *1/11/23
Wild card pick:
David Thomson The Fatal Alliance: A century of war on film 18/1

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2023.

Music courtesy of  Guy Hale author of The Comeback Trail, MIKE ZITO featuring Kid Anderson.
GUY HALE 

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,