Crime Time FM

WILLIAM BOYLE chats to Paul Burke about his novel SHOOT THE MOONLIGHT OUT, Noir, Haunted Catholicism, watching Blue Velvet at twelve and Oxford, Mississippi.

SHOOT THE MOONLIGHT OUT An explosive crime drama, evokes a mystical Brooklyn where the sidewalks are cracked, where Virgin Mary statues tilt in fenced front yards, and where smudges of moonlight reflect in puddles even on the blackest nights.
Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it's dumb and harmless until it's too late to think otherwise. Then there's Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighborhood wrongs through acts of violence. A simple mission to strong-arm a Bay Ridge con man, Max Berry, leads him to cross paths with a tragedy that hits close to home.
Fast forward five years: June 2001. The summer before New York City and the world changed for good. Charlie French is a low-level gangster-wannabe trying to make a name for himself. When he stumbles onto a bowling alley locker stuffed with a bag full of cash, he brings it to his only pal, Max Berry, for safekeeping while he cleans up the mess surrounding it. Bobby Santovasco - with no real future mapped out and the big sin of his past shining brightly in his rearview mirror - has taken a job working as an errand boy for Max Berry. On a recruiting run for Max's Ponzi scheme, Bobby meets Francesca Clarke, born in the neighborhood but an outsider nonetheless. They hit it off. Bobby gets the idea to knock off Max's safe so he and Francesca can escape Brooklyn forever. Little does he know what Charlie French has stashed there.
Meanwhile, Bobby's former stepsister, Lily Murphy, is back home in the neighborhood after college, teaching a writing class in the basement of St. Mary's church. She's also being stalked by her college boyfriend. One of her students is Jack Cornacchia. When she opens up to him about her stalker, Jack decides to take matters into his own hands.
Shoot the Moonlight Out is tragic and tender and funny and strange. A sense of loss is palpable - what has been lost and what will be lost - and Boyle's characters face down old ghosts with grim determination, as ripples of consequence radiate in dangerous directions.

William Boyle is from Brooklyn, New York. His debut novel, Gravesend, was published as #1,000 in the Rivages/Noir collection in France, shortlisted for the Prix Polar SNCF, nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger. Boyle is also the author of the Hammett Prize-nominated The Lonely Witness (No Exit Press), a book of short stories, Death Don't Have No Mercy and another novel, Tout est Brisè, released in France by Gallmeister. A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself was published to enormous praise, it was an Amazon Best Book in 2019. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

Recommendations
Novels:
Eli Cranor Don't Know Tough
Lewis Shiner Outside the Gates of Eden
Willy Vlautin
Larry Brown

Music :
Garland Jeffreys Shoot The Moonlight Out (American Boy and Girl)
Jim Carroll

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

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, NB Magazine and the European 

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,  

ROBERT J LLOYD chats to Paul Burke about his philosophical historical crime novel BLOODLESS BOY, scientist/detective Robert Hooke and getting published with a helping hand from Christopher Fowler.

BLOODLESS BOY: The City of London, 1678. New Year's Day. The body of a young boy, drained of his blood and with a sequence of numbers inscribed on his skin, is discovered on the snowy bank of the Fleet River. With London gripped by hysteria, where rumors of Catholic plots and sinister foreign assassins abound, Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, the powerful Justice of Peace for Westminster, is certain of Catholic guilt in the crime. He enlists Robert Hooke, the Curator of Experiments of the Royal Society, and his assistant, Harry Hunt, to help his enquiry. Sir Edmund confides to Hooke that the bloodless boy is not the first to have been discovered. He also presents Hooke with a cipher that was left on the body. That same morning Henry Oldenburg, the Secretary of the Royal Society, blows his brains out. A disgraced Earl is released from the Tower of London, bent on revenge against the King, Charles II. Wary of the political hornet's nest they are walking into - and using evidence rather than paranoia in their pursuit of truth - Hooke and Hunt must discover why the boy was murdered, and why his blood was taken. Moreover, what does the cipher mean?

Robert Lloyd is the son of parents who worked in the British Foreign Office, grew up in South London, Innsbruck, and Kinshasa. He studied for a Fine Art degree, starting as a landscape painter, but it was while studying for his MA degree in The History of Ideas that he first read Robert Hooke's diary, detailing the life and experiments of this extraordinary man. After a 20-year career as a secondary school teacher, he has now returned to painting and writing. The Bloodless Boy is his debut novel. He is at work on a sequel.

Recommended:
Lisa Jardine - Ingenious Pursuits (biography/history)
Leonora Nattrass - The Black Drop (novel)

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

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, NB Magazine and the European Literature Network and edits/presents Crime Time FM.

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,  

PROFILING:  Criminologist Jennifer Reese & Mark Olshaker (Mindhunter) discuss the portrayal of serial killers in popular culture and what drives our fascination with them.

"Are we as bad as the worst things we have done?"
Is Dexter a serial killer?
Did life imitate art? The birth of profiling in fiction.
The police officer at your elbow test.

VICTORIA SELMAN
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
Music courtesy of Southgate & Leigh
Crime Time

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,  

CHARLIE HIGSON chats to Paul Burke about his new adult novel WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT, character, Pantocrator, comedy is the spice of life and shaking up the Tupperware box.

WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT:  Most people travel to Corfu to escape the real world for a couple of weeks and embrace the fantasy of olive trees, sandy beaches, and little fishing boats bobbing on sparkling blue water under a warm sun.
But not McIntyre. McIntyre's a fixer, specialising in getting people out of places they don't want to be with the minimum of fuss, publicity and violence. The job in Corfu should be easy - spring, Lauren, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, from the luxury compound of the tech billionaire, Julian Hepworth. Hepworth's young, handsome and charismatic - he's also a suspected paedophile, who, under the guise of training a girls' tennis team, has set up an abusive cult.
But as McIntyre sets up his operation in the exclusive north eastern corner of the island, things quickly start to slip out of his control. First, Lauren's father turns up, threatening to give the game away, and soon, McIntyre's having to contend with Albanian gangsters, Greek drug dealers, psychotic bodyguards, flat earthers and spoilt, wealthy teenagers looking for dangerous kicks. To further complicate things, Lauren's planning her own 'jailbreak'. It looks like things are going to be a lot harder than McIntyre's used to. Luckily, he has his team around him, a motley and colourful bunch, each with their own speciality.
The intertwined stories come together as the various characters all converge on a glamorous summer party at Hepworth's spectacular villa. Can McIntyre play the different factions off against each other and get Lauren to safety without things going horribly wrong?
Whatever Gets You Through The Night is a crime novel with a thrillingly dark heart about the truths that lurk beneath the picture post card surface of a sunny Mediterranean idyll.

CHARLIE HIGSON started writing when he was ten years old. After university he was a singer and painter and decorator before he started writing for television. He went on to create and star in the hugely successful comedy series The Fast Show. He is the author of the bestselling Young Bond books and the incredibly successful horror series, The Enemy. WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT is his first adult novel in 25 years.
Charlie doesn't do Facebook, but you can tweet him @monstroso.

Recommended
Tokyo (alt. title The Devil of Nanking ) Mo Harder
Pop. 1280 Jim Thompson
Elmore Leonard, George V Higgins, Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler, Joe Ide,

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

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, NB Magazine and the European Literature Network and edits/presents Crime Time FM.

John Cages' composition is 4'33

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,  

DR HEATHER MARTIN chats to Paul Burke about her biography of Lee Child:
THE REACHER GUY and the Jack Reacher novels.

THE REACHER GUY (Constable) Lee Child is the enigmatic powerhouse behind the phenomenally successful Jack Reacher novels. With devoted fans across the globe, and over a hundred million copies of his books sold in more than forty languages, he is that rarity, a writer who is both critically acclaimed and adored by readers. And yet curiously little has been written about the man himself.
The Reacher Guy shows us for the first time the young man behind the invention of Jack Reacher. Through parallels drawn between Child and his literary creation, it tells the story of how a lost and lonely boy from Birmingham with a ferocious appetite for reading grew up to become a high-flying TV executive, before coming full circle and establishing himself as an internationally bestselling author.
Heather Martin explores Child's lifelong fascination with America - and shows how the Reacher novels fed and fuelled this obsession. Drawing on exclusive correspondence and conversations with Child over a number of years, she forensically pieces together his life, from Northern Ireland and County Durham to New York and Hollywood. This is the definitive account of the man behind one of the most iconic series of our times.shows us for the first time the young man behind the invention of Jack Reacher. Through parallels drawn between Child and his literary creation, it tells the story of how a lost and lonely boy from Birmingham with a ferocious appetite for reading grew up to become a high-flying TV executive, before coming full circle and establishing himself as an internationally bestselling author.

HEATHER MARTIN was born in West Australia. She read languages at Cambridge, where she also did a PhD in comparative literature, and has held teaching and research positions at Cambridge, Hull, King's College London, and most recently, the Graduate Center, City University New York.
Heather is a long-time Jack Reacher fan. While waiting to get her hands on the next in the series, she once read a Lee Child book in Spanish and wound up writing to the author about the fate of his character in translation. The Reacher Guy is her first biography. She is based in London.

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

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, NB Magazine and the European Literature Network and edits/presents Crime Time FM.

RECOMMENDED:
JORGE LUIS BORGES
THE MIDNIGHT LINE - LEE CHILD (and all the Reacher novels)

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,  

HANNAH KING chats to Paul Burke about her debut novel SHE AND I, her characters Keeley and Jude, class, being post troubles generation, judging others and how much is up to the reader to complete the novel

SHE AND I : Keeley and Jude are closer than blood. They share everything: clothes, secrets, drinks - and blame. So when they wake up after a New Year's party to find Keeley's boyfriend stabbed to death beside them, they agree to share one more thing: the story they'll tell the police.
But who is their story really meant to protect?
As the murder investigation begins to send uncomfortable ripples through their community, the history of the girls' claustrophobic relationship comes under scrutiny, will the girls find there's such a thing as sharing too much?

Hannah King is a writer from Co. Down, where she lives with her partner and their dogs. She and I is her first novel.

Recommendations
Afterlife
Roald Dahl

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

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, NB Magazine and the European Literature Network and edits/presents Crime Time FM.

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,  

Crime Critics On The Sofa Wth Victoria: Barry Forshaw Financial Times, Jake Kerridge The Telegraph and Jon Coates The Express discuss what makes a crime novel really stand out for them.

BARRY FORSHAW is the editor of Crime Time, author of several books on film and crime fiction and the Financial Times Crime Fiction Critic.

JAKE KERRIDGE writes about books and the like for The Telegraph and the like..

JON COATES Journalist, book reviewer and travel writer, currently deputy news editor of the Sunday Express

VICTORIA SELMAN
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
Music courtesy of Southgate & Leigh
Crime Time

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 Cold War spy thriller writer, TIM SHIPMAN Chief Political Commentator for The Sunday Times and Paul Burke discuss Vidich's new novel THE MATCHMAKER and all things spy fiction related. Including an exclusive announcement of the highest placed living author on Tim Shipman's 120 top spy writers (Spybrary)

THE MATCHMAKER: Berlin, 1989. Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door. Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. 
Anne had been targeted by the Matchmaker - a high level East German counterintelligence officer - who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his 'Romeos' who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead. 
The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face - from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office - and she is the CIA's best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. 
Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany. But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?

Paul Vidich has had a distinguished career in music and media. Most recently, he served as Special Advisor to AOL and was Executive Vice President at the Warner Music Group, in charge of technology and global strategy. He serves on the Board of Directors of Poets & Writers and The New School for Social Research. A founder and publisher of the Storyville App, Vidich is also an award-winning author of short fiction. His novels, An Honorable Man, The Good Assassin, The Coldest Warrior ,The Mercenary and The Matchmaker all available from No Exit Press.

Tim Shipman is the Chief Political Commentator of The Sunday Times, a contributor to Spybrary and a fan of all things spy related.  Tim is the author of ALL OUT WAR: The Full Story of Brexit and FAll OUT: A Year of Political Mayhem. Tim's 120 Top Spy Writers

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

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, NB Magazine and the European Literature Network and edits/presents Crime Time FM.

Matchmaker No Exit Press direct or other buying services, paperback or eBook.

Recommendations

TV:
Fauda
Le Bureau
The Sandbaggers
Possibly looking forward to The IPCRESS File (ITV) and Slough House (Apple)

Novels:
The Soul of Victor Tronko - David Quammen
The Berlin Exchange - Joseph Kanon
Graham Greene
David Ignatius
A Spy's Fate - Arnaldo Correa
Len Deighton Berlin Game, Set & Match series
How to Betray Your Country - James Wolff
Red Sparrow - Jason Matthews
Damascus Station - David McCloskey

Factual 
The File - Timothy Garton Ash

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,  

AMEN ALONGE chats to Paul Burke about his blistering debut A GOOD DAY TO DIE, Pretty Boy, London, Lagos, body count and character.

A GOOD DAY TO DIE: Meet Pretty Boy. Vengeance is on his mind.
His real name:
Unknown
His code of conduct:
Don't be a pawn in someone else's game.
Never underestimate the enemy.
Above all, survive. There is no glory in death.
His mission:
It's been ten years since Pretty Boy left the big city - today he's back. No one knows why, but it's clear that revenge is on his mind: he is determined to make the person responsible for his exile from the London scene finally pay. But his plans seem derailed when he takes possession of a bracelet, unaware that its original owner has set a high price for its safe return. Suddenly, the hunter becomes the hunted and Pretty Boy will have to find out if it is indeed a 'good day to die'.

AMEN ALONGE was born in Lagos and moved to London as a teenager almost twenty years ago. He took a Master's Degree at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, then worked as an engineer. He went on to take a screenwriting course at London Film Academy and, for a while, ran the family business, a sports media company that owned the global licensing rights for the Nigerian Football League. He changed careers since, and is currently training to become a solicitor. Amen lives in London with his wife and their son.

Recommendations:
No Time To Die (Cinema)
Yellowjackets (Showtime)
The Man on the Street Trevor Wood (fiction)

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

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, NB Magazine and the European Literature Network and edits/presents Crime Time FM.

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 reviews January and February crime fiction:
A killing in November Simon Mason - Riverrun
Faceless Vanda Symon - Orenda
Payback Mike Lupica - No Exit Press
All Was Lost Stuart Maxwell - Pushkin
She and I Hannah King - Bloomsbury Raven
The Long Weekend Gilly Macmillan - Century
We Know You Remember Tove Alsterdal - Faber and Faber
Real Easy Marie Rutkoski - Tinder
One for Sorrow Helen Fields - Avon
Her Last Holiday CL Taylor - Avon
A Good Day to Die Amen Alonge - Quercus

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

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, NB Magazine and the European Literature Network and edits/presents Crime Time FM.

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,