Crime Time FM

Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival Wales' only international crime writing festival returns to Aberystwyth 25th-27th April, 2025. Guests include Mark Billingham, Elly Griffiths, Mari Hannah, Chris Lloyd, Clare Mackintosh, Zoe Sharp, Graham Bartlett, Vaseem Khan, Abir Mukherjee, Alis Hawkins, Nicola Williams, Louise Mumford, Phil Rowlands. Ayo Onatade, Dr. Noir, Matt Johnson, Gwen Parrott and many more.

Paul Burke chats to festival organiser Gail Williams, treasurer Sarah Ward and chair Philip Gwynne Jones about the event. 

Aberystwyth - lovely seaside location, friendly local reception, beautiful venues, and nearby tourist/countryside attractions.

Tickets here

Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival Sponsors: Arts Council of Wales, Ceridigeon Museum, Love Ceridigeon, Aberystwyth govt., Literature Wales, Waterstones, Welsh Govt., Lottery, Hugh James and National Library of Wales.

Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.

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,  

Laura McCLUSKEY chats to Craig Sisterson about her new crime thriller THE WOLF TREE, the Scottish lighthouse mystery, film and book, writing the sequel, 

THE WOLF TREE A mysterious death. On a small island off the coast of Scotland, an isolated community is grieving. Eighteen-year-old Alan Ferguson was found at the foot of the lighthouse – an apparent suicide. Two detectives trapped on an island. DIs Georgina Lennox and Richard Stewart are sent to investigate. But a raging storm keeps them trapped on the island for four days. And the locals don’t take kindly to mainlanders. A village full of suspects. As George and Ritchie question the island’s inhabitants, they discover a village filled with superstition and shrouded in secrets. But someone wants those secrets to stay buried. At any cost.

Laura McCluskey is a Melbourne-based writer, editor and actor. She created the production company Sibylline Films and co-founded Three Fates Theatre Company. The Wolf Tree is her first novel.

Recommendations: JK Rowling - Harry Potter, Suzanne Collins - Hunger Games, Lemony Snickett- A Series of Unfortunate Events, Dervla McTiernan, Ashley Kalagian Blunt Cold Truth

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,  

AJAY CHOWDHURY chats to Craig Sisterson about his new novel THE SHADOW,

THE SHADOW: A ritual killing. An ancient curse. What's myth... and what's murder?
After a bruising encounter with a terrorist group, Detective Kamil Rahman has decided to hand in his resignation to the Met and set up a detective agency with his friend Anjoli. But when his boss asks him to go to India to investigate the murder of a British engineer who was found with eighteen arrows stuck in his body, Kamil agrees to take the case, as long as Anjoli can accompany him.
When they arrive in Mumbai, they find someone is on a gruesome killing spree, striking down those connected to the engineer in increasingly macabre ways. Meanwhile, an old friend of Kamil’s gets in touch to beg for his help: he believes his family are cursed, and that he is going to die on his 47th birthday, just like his father and grandfather before him.
As the body count rises, Kamil is torn between solving a very real murder case and protecting his friend from a grisly – if far-fetched – fate. Can he catch a killer and prevent an ancient curse before more people lose their lives?

AJAY CHOWDHURY was the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker–Bloody Scotland crime fiction award. He is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director who was born in India and now lives in London where he builds digital businesses, cooks experimental dishes for his wife and daughters and writes through the night. His children’s book, Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical.
The Waiter, published in 2021, is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures. Follow-up The Cook was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy is the fourth book in the Detective Kamil Rahman series.

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,  

NICK KOLAKOWSKI chats to Paul Burke about his new California PI novel WHERE THE BONES LIE, training wheels, heist novels, the private eye, voice versus pastiche and AI.

WHERE THE BONES LIE: For Dash Fuller, Hollywood’s underbelly is home. He’s spent years making the film industry’s worst secrets disappear, and it’s left him a cynical burnout with a taste for bourbon and self-loathing.
But when a young woman comes to him with a peculiar quest, Dash sees a chance at redemption. Madeline Ironwood is the daughter of Ken Ironwood, a notorious smuggler and murderer who disappeared 20 years ago. Ken’s skeleton has just been discovered in a barrel at the bottom of a dried-up lake, and Madeline wants to know who killed him.
Dash agrees to help, and as this desperate daughter and jaded cynic claw their way through a world of sun-bleached secrets, crooked cops, and Hollywood thugs, they soon uncover a conspiracy involving some of LA’s most powerful people.
Get ready for a fast-paced, darkly funny thriller with a twist you won’t see coming.

NICK KOLAKOWSKI lives and writes in NYC. His recent novels and novellas include Groundhog Slay (Crystal Lake Publishing), Payback is Forever (Shotgun Honey), and Boise Longpig Hunting Club (Down & Out Books). Nick grew up as a voracious reader of mystery and crime fiction, and his own writing is an attempt to pay homage to the best of the genre while also using it as a lens through which to view our weird, sometimes not-so-wonderful modern life. 

Recommendations: Ivy Pochoda Sing Her Down, Thomas Trang Dark Neon Dirt, Jordan Harper Everybody Knows.

Mentions: James Wallis, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Carl Hiaasen, James M Cain, Black Wings Has My Angel Elliot Chaze, Jordan Harper Everybody Knows, SA Cosby King of Ashes, Eryk Pruitt Something Bad Wrong.

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 Review Show March 2025. New crime fiction.

Paperboy Callum McSorley 

When Shadows Fall Neil Lancaster 

Green Ink Stephen May

Hunkeler’s Secret Hansjörg Schneider

Murder Below Deck Orlando Murrin

William Boyle Saint of the Narrows Street

The Cost Morgan Cry 

The Cambridge Siren Jim Kelly

Born to Lose Marek Z Turner 

Flicking the Bic Tia Ja’nae

Words Fail Me Frances McKendrick 

Cat Among the Pigeons & Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie (Poirot)

Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.

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,  

TANIA MALIK chats to Paul about her novel, just out in the UK, HOPE YOU ARE SATISFIED, Dubai, the immigrant experience, spooks, smugglers and tourists.

HOPE YOU ARE SATISFIED: 1990. Twenty-five-year-old Riya works for Discover Arabia, a tour guide company in the far-flung outpost of Dubai. In the months leading up to the first Gulf War, the city's iconic skyline and global reputation are just a gleam in developers' eyes. For Riya, it's a desert purgatory that spreads out between her family back home in India and her unknown future.
As political tensions run high, international arms dealers, American soldiers, CIA consultants, corrupt bosses and wayward vacationers all compete for Discover Arabia's attention. Meanwhile, Riya and her colleagues begin to plan their exit strategies.
Will a favour from Dubai's most notorious fixer offer Riya the chance to fulfil her financial obligations and escape to the United States?

Tania Malik is the author of Three Bargains and Hope You Are Satisfied. She was born in New Delhi and raised in India, Africa and the Middle East. She was educated in boarding schools in the foothills of the Himalayas and graduated from the University of Delhi with a degree in geography. Tania has had a varied career in the travel marketing and non-profit industries. She divides her time between San Francisco's Bay Area and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Recommendations City of Thieves David Benioff, American Spy Lauren Wilkinson

Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.

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,  

Tod Lending #OnTheSofaWithVictoria. A special featuring THE UMBRELLA MAKER'S SON, the Holocaust, interior character, documentary film and storytelling.

THE UMBRELLA MAKER'S SON: Born to a secure, middle-class Polish Jewish family, seventeen-year-old Reuven works alongside his father, an artisan businessman whose shop creates the finest handmade umbrellas in Poland. But the family's peaceful life shatters when the Nazis invade their homeland, igniting World War II. With terrifying brutality, the Nazis confiscate their business, evict them from their home, and strip away their rights, threatening the lives of the city's Jewish population, including Reuven and Zelda, the girl he loves. Shortly after the Nazi occupation, Zelda and her family disappear, and Reuven and his father are forced into backbreaking physical labor that nearly kills them. For the young man and his family, the only chance to survive is escape--and some of them will die trying. Fleeing a Nazi ambush through the surrounding forest, shot and wounded, Reuven is found by a local farmer who has never met a Jew--and agrees to help because he needs the boy to work the farm with him. The farmer's wife, however, is not as kind. Her betrayal forces a desperate Reuven to escape. He embarks on a perilous journey through the Polish countryside, determined to reach the Kraków ghetto where he hopes to reunite with Zelda, whose life has also been forever changed by the horrors of occupation and war. A love story and a story of family, The Umbrella Maker's Son is a riveting, heartfelt, and beautiful tale of survival and unexpected hope in the face of terror and violence. A chronicle of triumph, it joins the ranks of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and other memorable works of modern Holocaust literature.

Tod Lending is an Academy Award-nominated and national Emmy-winning producer, director, writer, and cinematographer. His work has aired nationally on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and HBO; has been screened theatrically and received awards at national and international festivals, including the Sundance Film Fest.; and has been televised internationally in Europe and Asia. He is the president and founder of Nomadic Pictures, a documentary film production company based in Chicago. The Umbrella Maker's Son is his debut novel.

Recommendations: Zorba the Greek , The Krakow Diary of Julius Feldman, Mila 18 Leon Uris, The Tattooist of Auschwitz Heather Morris.

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,  

Graeme Macrae Burnet chats to Paul Burke about the concluding volume of the Gorsky trilogy A CASE OF MATRICIDE, Simenon, Zola, small town France & Kilmarnock. 

*Cryptic intro explained - Graeme was on Benbecula because Polygon will publish a new novella by him Benbecula. The next in Polygon’s Darkland Tales series, which sees Scottish authors reimagining key moments from Scottish history, myth and legend.

A CASE OF MATRICIDE: Chief Inspector Gorski returns … In the unremarkable French town of Saint-Louis, a mysterious stranger stalks the streets; an elderly woman believes her son is planning to do away with her; a prominent manufacturer drops dead. Between visits to the town’s hostelries, Chief Inspector Georges Gorski ponders the connections, if any, between these events, while all the time grappling with his own domestic and existential demons.Graeme Macrae Burnet once again pierces the respectable bourgeois façade of small-town life in this, the concluding part of his trilogy of Gorski novels. He injects a wry humour into the tiniest of details and delves into the darkest recesses of his characters’ minds, but above all provides an entertaining, profound and moving read.

Graeme Macrae Burnet is one of the UK’s brightest literary talents. His second novel, His Bloody Project, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2016, won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award 2016, and was shortlisted for the LA Times Book Awards 2017. It has been published around the world. His fourth novel, Case Study, was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022. The two previous novels in Graeme’s Gorski trilogy have also received widespread critical praise and have become cult-like classics in several countries for their multilayered references and metafictional elements.

Recommendations Georges Simenon Maigret, Roman Durs, Mo Hayder The Treatment, Alba de Céspedes Forbidden Notebook

Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.

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,  

Anna Sharpe (Anna Mazzola) chats to Craig Sisterson about her new legal thriller Notes on a Drowning, contemporary v historical fiction, misogyny, childhood reading and condensing the law.

Notes on a Drowning Alex knows she risks getting fired from her law firm if she takes on another unpaid case, but when she hears Rosa's desperate voice at the other end of the phone, she knows she has to help: the body of Rosa's shy teenage sister, Natalia, has been dragged, lifeless, from the Thames. Alex can't help but think of her own missing little sister. She knows how a lack of answers can eat you alive.
Kat has worked hard to become Special Adviser to the Home Secretary, and is eager to finally put the dark and tragic part of her past behind her. But when she discovers a series of cover-ups, she begins to wonder whether her seemingly perfect new boss could be involved. Then she's shocked to discover a letter that raises worrying questions about a girl found drowned in London... Natalia.
There are complex and painful reasons for Alex and Kat not to work together, but when it becomes clear that there are powerful people involved in Natalia's death, and that other girls are at risk, Alex and Kat must overcome their differences to find answers. Will they save the girls and discover the truth? Or will the high-powered players in this game stop Alex and Kat for good?

Anna Sharpe is the pseudonym of Anna Mazzola. She's the award-winning author of three historical thrillers plus one ghost novel. Her debut novel, The Unseeing, won an Edgar Allan Poe award in the US. Her third novel, The Clockwork Girl, set in 18th century Paris, reached number 11 in the Sunday Times Chart

Recommendations: The Cut Throat Trial SJ Fleet (The Secret Barrister, August), Dangerous Essie Fox (April), Cat Fight Kit Conway (May), That'll Teach Her Maz Evans (End Feb), The Art of a Lie Laura Shepherd Robinson (July), The School Gates AA Chaudhury (June).

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.

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 Crime Fiction releases February 2025

Presumed Guilty Scott Turow, Swift HB

Nobody's Fool Harlen Coben, Century HB

The Trials of Lila Dalton LJ shepherd, Pushkin PB

The Marshal of Snowdonia Simon McCleave, Stamford PB

A Trial in Three Acts Guy Morpuss, Viper HB

The Unrecovered Richard Strachan, Raven Bloomsbury HB

The Story of a Murder Hallie Rubenhold, Doubleday Non-Fiction

The East Ham Golem Barbara Nadal, Allison & Busby

Holy City Henry Wise No Exit Press

Dragon Man & Snapshot Garry Disher, Viper

Box Nine Jack O’Connell, No Exit Press

Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.

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,