WALTER MOSLEY - CWA DIAMOND DAGGER WINNER - chats to Paul Burke about EVERY MAN A KING, his writing, his characters, personal inspiration, American politics, good thoughts for writers and hope & belief.

The most prestigious Dagger of all, the Diamond Dagger is for a lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language and is nominated by CWA members.

WALTER MOSLEY was born in LA in 1952. His African-American father Leroy from Louisiana joined the great migration north. His mother Ella, of Russian Jewish descent, was politically engaged which resonates in Mosley's work. 
Mosley took up writing at 34 with Gone Fishin' but it was Devil in a Blue Dress that was first published to acclaim in 1990, winning the John Creasey New Blood Dagger in 1991. Set in LA in 1948, Easy Rawlins is facing a murder charge when he takes a job searching for a white woman. Then stone-cold killer Mouse arrives from Houston, he's more terrifying than any of the chiselled giants in Mosley's novels.
Devil in a Blue Dress was filmed in 1995 starring Denzil Washington as Easy and Jennifer Beal as Mosley's first femme fatale Daphne Monet, Don Cheadle chills the blood as Mouse. Yet there are too few screen incarnations of Mosley books. Lawrence Fishburne played Socrates Fortlow in 1998's Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned and The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey starring Samuel Jackson appeared on Apple TV+ in 2022. Mosley has worked as a scriptwriter on, amongst other shows, Snowfall, 2018, and Star Trek Discovery, 2019.
In all Mosley has written 60+ books; crime, literary, sci-fi and erotic fiction, two graphic novels, two plays, short stories and six nonfiction titles. He has often written features for the New Yorker and The Nation.
Mosley's fiction centres on irresistibly engaging antiheroes, one would be an achievement but five such is remarkable - PI Easy Rawlins (15 novels), ex-con Socrates Fortlow (3), New York bad man making amends Leonid McGill (6), Fearless Jones (3) and ex-cop Joe King Oliver (2).
The novels are about race, rampant capitalism and inequality in American society. Mosley lives in LA and Brooklyn and engages with the history of both places. He chronicles America, post-WWII to the present day, the story of African-American America and the lives of the poorest people in society.
Mosley has received acclaim throughout his career including the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 2016. Down the River unto the Sea, 2018, won an Edgar the following year and Mosley was the first black male recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2020. There's also the PEN America Lifetime Achievement Award, the NAACP Image Award (3 times) and a Grammy and this list is by no means exhaustive.
In June 2018 Mosley with Kellye Garrett and Gigi Pandian set up Crime Writers of Color, a collective for authors from underrepresented backgrounds, now with over 350 members internationally. The organisation won the prestigious Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America at the Edgars in April.
He has no intention of putting down his pen...

Recommendations 
Killer Of Sheep - D. Charles Burnett
A Woman Under The Influence - D. John Cassavetes 

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

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 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

EPISODE 3: CWA DAGGERS:
AWARD NIGHT, DAGGERS WINNERS & ILP JOHN CREASEY NEW BLOOD DAGGER SHORTLIST INTERVIEWS

30MINS Coverage of GALA Night, inc. all winners, starts at 53mins if you've already listened to the show.

This Dagger is for the best crime novel by a first-time author of any nationality with their first novel of any kind published in the UK in English during the judging period.

Paul Burke and Victoria Selman chat to the shortlisted authors for the John Creasey New Blood Dagger and the winners of all the Daggers are revealed following the announcements in London on 6th July, 2023.

 John Creasey New Blood Dagger shortlist
Amanda Cassidy Breaking    Canelo
Joey Hartstone The Local    Pushkin Vertigo
Jack Lutz London in Black    Pushkin Vertigo
Hayely Scrivenor Dirt Town   Pan Macmillan
Patricia Wolf Outback   Bonnier
Emma Styles No Country for Girls   Sphere

*ALL WINNERS ANNOUNCED ON THIS EPISODE*

Links:
The CWA
The Daggers
#CWADAGGERS

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

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 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

CWA DAGGERS EPISODE 2: THE GOLD DAGGER
Paul Burke chats to the shortlisted authors for the CWA Gold Dagger -
Best Crime Novel Of  The Year 2022

This award is for the best crime novel by an author of any nationality, originally written in English and first published in the UK during the judging period. The broadest definition of the crime novel applies. Eligible books include thrillers, mysteries, police procedurals, psychological suspense novels and spy fiction.

The Shortlist

Vaseem Khan The Bombay   Hodder&Stoughton
Anna Mazzola The Clockwork Girl   Orion
Simon Mason The Broken Afernoon   Quercus
Simon Van der Velde The Silent Brother   Northodox
George Dawes Green The Kingdoms of Savannah   Headline
W Ryan The Winter Guest   Bonnier 

The winner of the Gold Dagger will be announced on 6th July
and covered in the next episode of this series, now avaiable.

Links:
The CWA
The Daggers
#CWADAGGERS

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

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 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

Episode 1 of the CWA DAGGERS Specials on Crime Time FM -
The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger.

Victoria Selman chats to Eva Glass, Linwood Barclay & John Brownlow about being shortlisted for the Steel Dagger & writing a thrilling thriller.
The other shortlisted authors are MW Craven, Robert Galbraith & Alan Parks.

Ian Fleming said there was one essential criterion for a good thriller, ‘one simply has to turn the pages’.
Eligible books in this category are thrillers set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction, psychological thrillers and action/adventure stories.

The 2022 shortlist:

Linwood Barclay Take Your Breath Away   Harper Collins
John Brownlow Agent Seventeen   Hodder&Stoughton
MW Craven The Botanist   Little Brown
Robert Galbraith Ink Black Heart   Sphere 
Eva Glass The Chase   Penguin
Alan Parks May God Forgive   Canongate  

VICTORIA SELMAN is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Truly Darkly Deeply

Links:
The CWA
The Daggers 

The Daggers Award Winners are announced on 6th July in London.

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 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

MW Mike CRAVEN chats to Paul Burke about his new high octane thriller FEARLESS, Lee Child, Tilly & Poe, Fluke, TV rights, Michael Connelly and the amygdala.

FEARLESS: Ben Koenig is a ghost. He doesn't exist any more.
Six years ago it was Koenig who headed up the US Marshal's elite Special Ops group. They were the elite unit who hunted the bad guys - the really bad guys. They did this so no one else had to.
Until the day Koenig disappeared. He told no one why and he left no forwarding address. For six years he became a grey man. Invisible. He drifted from town to town, state to state. He was untraceable. It was as if he had never been.
But now Koenig's face is on every television screen in the country. Someone from his past is trying to find him and they don't care how they do it. In the burning heat of the Chihuahuan Desert lies a town called Gauntlet, and there are people in there who have a secret they'll do anything to protect. They've killed before and they will kill again.
Only this time they've made a mistake. They've dismissed Koenig as just another drifter - but they're wrong. Because Koenig has a condition, a unique disorder that makes it impossible for him to experience fear. And now they're about to find out what a truly fearless man is capable of. Because Koenig's coming for them. And hell's coming with him . . .

MW CRAVEN - Multi-award winning author M. W. Craven was born in Carlisle but grew up in Newcastle. He joined the army at sixteen, leaving ten years later to complete a social work degree. Seventeen years after taking up a probation officer role in Cumbria, at the rank of assistant chief officer, he became a full-time author. The Puppet Show, the first book in his Cumbria-set Washington Poe series, was published by Little, Brown in 2018 and went on to win the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger in 2019. It has now been translated into twenty-one languages. Black Summer, the second in the series, was longlisted for the 2020 Gold Dagger as was book three, The Curator. The fourth in the series, Dead Ground, was published last June, became an instant Sunday Times bestseller and won the 2022 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger.The latest book in the series, The Botanist, published in June, also became an instant Sunday Times bestseller.

Recommended 
Sweet Thing David Swinson 
IQ Series Joe Ice
Robert Crais Elvis Cole

Website: mwcraven.com
Twitter: @MWCravenUK

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

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 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

Paul Burke presents another bumper review show featuring crime fiction titles and a couple of wild card picks released this month (mostly anyway). The selection is heavy on the noir, psychological thrillers and in translation novels.
*Apologies for any mangling of German, Italian. French, Japanese or Russian names.

The Red House Roz Watkins
End of the Game Holly Watt
Dead Lands Núria Bendicho trans. by Maruxa Relaño & Martha Tennent
Black Fell Mari Hannah
First Blood Amélie Northomb trans. by Alison Anderson
The Widow Couderc George Simenon trans. Sian Reynolds
Silent Waters LV Matthews
Evil Intentions Come Timothy J Lockhart
No Ordinary Day Matt Johnson & John Murray
Tokyo Time Dawn Farnham
The Invisible Web Oliver Bottini trans. Jamie Bulloch
Tell Me What I Am Una Mannion
The Devil's Flute Murders Seishi Yokomizo trans. Jim Rion
The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone trans. Oonagh Stransky
Voices of the Dead Ambrose Parry
Black River Nilanjana Roy
The Price Darren O'Sullivan
Our American Friend Anna Pitoniak

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

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 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

SHEILA BUGLER chats to Paul Burke about BLACK VALLEY FARM, why writing is torture but she loves it, getting it down on the page and avoiding writers block, being mentored by Martin Waites and writing about Ireland, (the next novel).

BLACK VALLEY FARM
The truth could ruin everything. A decade ago, the bodies of nine people were discovered at Black Valley Farm. The only suspect vanished without a trace. Clare has spent ten years living a lie, but a new podcast on the murders threatens to bring her carefully built life crashing down.  Because someone else has listened to the podcast.Someone who knows Clare is lying, and who will stop at nothing to ensure the truth never comes to light.

SHEILA BUGLER grew up in a small town in the west of Ireland. After studying Psychology at University College Galway (now called NUI Galway) she left Ireland and worked as an EFL teacher, travelling to Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland and Argentina. She is the author of a series of crime novels featuring DI Ellen Kelly. The novels are set in South East London, an area she knows and loves. She now lives in Eastbourne, on the beautiful East Sussex coast. Eastbourne is the location for her series of crime novels featuring investigative journalist Dee Doran. When she’s not writing, Sheila does corporate writing and storytelling, she runs creative writing courses, is a tutor for the Writers Bureau and is a mentor on the WoMentoring programme. She reviews crime fiction for crimesquad.com and she is a regular guest on BBC Radio Sussex. She is married with two children. Black Valley Farm is her new novel.

Recommendations
Laura Lippman Prom Mom
Hayley Scrivenor Dirt Town

Thank you to CANELO CRIME for sponsoring this episode.

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

 

Produced by Junkyard Dog
Music courtesy of Southgate and Leigh
Crime Time

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

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 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

CLÉMENCE MICHALLON chats to Paul Burke about her psychological thriller THE QUIET TENANT, true crime, serial killers, victims and survivors and Seinfeld.

THE QUIET TENANT He took you and you have been his for five years. But you have been careful. Waiting for him to mess up. It has to be now.
Aidan Thomas is a hardworking family man and a respected member of his community. He's the kind of man who always lends a hand and has a good word for everyone. He's also a kidnapper and serial killer who has murdered eight women. And there's a ninth, a woman he calls Rachel, imprisoned in a backyard shed where she fears for her life.
When Aidan's wife dies, he and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Cecilia, are forced to move. Aidan has no choice but to bring Rachel too, introducing her to Cecilia as a family friend who needs a place to stay. He knows that after five years of captivity, Rachel is too frightened of the consequences to attempt to escape. But Rachel is a fighter and a survivor. And when Emily, a local restaurant owner, develops a crush on the handsome widower, she finds herself drawn into Rachel and Cecilia's orbit, coming dangerously close to discovering Aidan's secret.
The Quiet Tenant explores the psychological impact of Aidan's crimes on the women in his life through the voices of Rachel, Cecilia, and Emily - and the bonds between those women that give them the strength to fight back. Both a searing thriller and an astute study of trauma, survival, and the dynamics of power, The Quiet Tenant is an electrifying debut by a major talent.

CLÉMENCE MICHALLON was born in France. She received an MS in Journalism from Columbia University in New York, and started working as a journalist for the Independent in 2018. She has interviewed artists from Judd Apatow to Ben Platt and authors such as Rumaan Alam, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Curtis Sittenfeld. Her essays, features, and reporting have covered true-crime, celebrity culture, and literature.
She moved to New York City in 2014 and became a US citizen in 2022. She now divides her time between New York and Rhinebeck with her husband and their dog Claudine. The Quiet Tenant is her debut thriller.

You can find her on Instagram @Clemencemichallon, where she often posts about crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers, and on Twitter @Clemence_Mcl.

RECOMMENDATIONS
My Murder KATIE WILLIAMS
The Trap KATHERINE RYAN HOWARD
The Room Emma Donoghue
Magpie ELIZABETH DAY
Savage Appetites RACHEL MONROE
Laura Lippman, Agatha Christie, Megan Abbott
and
SEINFELD


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

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 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

DREDA SAY MITCHELL MBE & RYAN CARTER (Tony Mason) chat to Paul Burke about their new psychological thriller BELIEVE ME, new ways of publishing, the Groucho Club, writing partners

BELIEVE ME: One woman’s mysterious death has led to a lifetime of pain. Can her daughter find out why?
While working on a property dispute, lawyer Gabby is shocked to discover a name more familiar than her own on the title deeds: her mother’s. But her mother died twenty-five years ago from an undiagnosed illness at forty, leaving Gabby with more questions about the mysterious Ocean Haven than she can find answers for.
Desperate to uncover the truth of her mother’s connection to this house, Gabby begins to investigate, creating tension in her fractured and distant family. So when she begins to uncover the dark and disturbing history of Ocean Haven, is there anyone at all she can turn to?
With her own fortieth birthday fast approaching, Gabby senses the onset of the same unexplained pains her mother experienced all those years ago. Is she being paranoid, or is she about to die in the same way? Or is Ocean Haven hiding a secret about her mother’s past—and Gabby’s future—that she hasn’t yet dared imagine?

DREDA SAY MITCHELL & RYAN CARTER Dreda was awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours’ List, 2020. She scooped the CWA’s John Creasey Dagger Award for best first-time crime novel in 2004, the first time a Black British author has received this honour.
Ryan and Dreda write across the crime and mystery genre – psychological thrillers, gritty gangland crime and fast-paced action books. Spare Room, their first psychological thriller, was a #1 UK and US Amazon Bestseller. Dreda is a passionate campaigner and speaker on social issues and the arts. She has appeared on television, including Celebrity Pointless, Celebrity Eggheads, BBC 1 Breakfast, Sunday Morning Live, Newsnight, The Review Show and Front Row Late on BBC 2. Ryan and Dreda performed a specially commissioned monologue on the ground-breaking Sky Arts Art 50 on Sky TV.
Dreda is a trustee of the Royal Literary Fund and an ambassador for The Reading Agency. Some of their books are currently in development as TV and film adaptations.
Dreda’s parents are from the beautiful Caribbean island of Grenada.

Recommendations
The Colour Purple Alice Walker
Clinging to the Wreckage John Mortimer
Until Proven Innocent Nicola Williams

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

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 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,

#OnTheSofa With Victoria. Season 4, Episode 10: So you're published. Now what? Belinda Bauer (Exit, Snap) & Clare Mackintosh (Game of Lies , July 2023) reveal the realities of being a writer and how it compares to the dream. The pressure of coming up with shiny new ideas- to a schedule. And even how writing affects our reading.

VICTORIA SELMAN
SundayTimes bestselling author of Truly Darkly Deeply
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 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,