Marthe Jocelyn is about to publish her 50th book. It's called 'The Seaside Corpse', and is the 4th in the Aggie Morton Mystery Queen series. It's based on a young Agatha Christie, who solves crimes with her best friend Hector Poirot. The new one takes place in 1903 Lyme Regis, when searching for dinosaurs, Aggie comes across a dead body.

We talk about how much she plots mysteries, and why this story has made her mix that up a bit. Also, you can hear how accurate she wants to get her story to real-life 1903 Lyme Regis, and how she researches it. You can hear how much she thinks about how her books look, how a form of peer pressure helps her write, and how using writing exercises, like only using one-syllable words, can really help you think about the story.

You can find out more about Marthe's work at marthejocelyn.com!

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This week, we chat to author and lecturer David Bell. He's just published his 12th book, 'The Finalists'. It looks at a group of prospective college students, and the lengths they might go to gain a prestigious fellowship. Think 'The Breakfast Club' with murder.

His novel, 'Kill All Your Darlings', was nominated for an Edgar Award, and he's written his books whilst lecturing English and writing at University. We talk about how he balances his time teaching writing, and actually writing. You can also hear how he makes a locked room story consistently engaging, when your characters can't really go very far... how do you make it gripping for a reader?

We talk about making stock characters unique, whether deadlines change, how knowing you've done it once can really help you believe you can do it again, and why he absolutely loves a routine.

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Gordon J. Brown has just published his 9th novel, it's called 'Six Wounds' and is published under the name Morgan Cry. We talk about why he's started writing under a different name, and how a certain ex-Prime Minister played a part in that.

The book was inspired by a conversation in a Spanish pub, investigating how an ex-pat can be in two places at once. You can hear the process of moving that idea into a full book. It's about Daniella Coulstoun, the prime suspect in the murder of a notorious gangster, who must find the real killer fast.

We talk about how Gordon can write anywhere, how Stephen King inspired his writing routine, and how he copes with writing words he know will be cut. You can hear about his confusing filing system, how putting someone on a flight cut almost 40k words, and why he thinks Scotland is so synonymous with crime-writing.

Gordon is a co-founder of 'Bloody Scotland', one of Europe's biggest crime-writing festivals. Find out more at bloodyscotland.com

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Emily Houghton managed to write the entire draft of her very first novel on her phone, whilst travelling around the world. That novel, 'Before I Saw You', was a huge success and she's followed it up with 'Last Time We Met'.

It's about Eleanor and Finn, who make a pact to marry each other if they're single at 35. Then, 15 years later, they bump into each other... what do you think happens?

We talk about how writing her new book has been completely different than getting her first down on her phone. Also you can hear about her re-drafts, why she's had to be more structured in writing, and how she plans scene breakdowns.

Emily talks about uplit and rom-com, and how she strives to make hers different, also about finding your voice, and what she perceives her own style to be.

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Robert Murphy has worked as a news reporter for many years. Over the last decade or so, Robert followed the tragic story of Melanie Road. Melanie was murdered in Bath in 1984, after a year long enquiry with 94 arrests being made, no-one was charged. Then in 2009, Detective Superintendent Julie MacKay found something that changed everything.

Julie has co-written the story with Robert. We talk about how that worked, how he discovered every facet of the story, and moved that into a plot. You can hear how much thought they gave to the standards of genre fiction, when dealing with true crime and peoples lives - how much can you manipulate the story to be gripping and thrilling, when you're talking about such a tragic tale?

We discuss how he organises a full-time creative job, with a creative hobby, and what his home life is like with a partner who also writes... and works in TV news.

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Lexie Elliott accomplishes things. She graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in theoretical physics (?!) became a championship-winning swimmer, and even swam the English Channel.

She's just published her third novel, 'How to Kill Your Best Friend'. It tells the story of 3 friends who met on the college swim team. Years later, one is found dead in the ocean near a remote island. Can an elite swimmer really have drowned, or is something else going on?

We talk about why she wanted to make the location of the story one of the central characters, also how she's had to be much better with deadlines after becoming a full-tiime writer, and how lockdown has changed where she writes.

You can hear why she's pushed to be a writer in amongst everything else she's achieved, when she got a hold on her writing voice, and how quite rarely... the title came before the plot.

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Barnaby Jameson Q.C is one of the country's top counter-terrorist lawyers, involved in notorious cases involved bomb-threats and plans to assassinate MPs. In his time between cases, he's worked on a new thriller, 'Codename: Madeleine'.

It's inspired by the story of Poor Inayat Khan, an agent behind enemy lines. We talk about the idea, how he researched it and plotted out a story inspired by fact. Also you can hear how his writing is a curated stream of consciousness, where he escapes to write, and how he switches off part of his brain to write instead of lawyer.

We chat about how he gets better at telling stories in court, what the first kernel of a plot-idea was, and how unique the politically-charged landscape is right now.

I'll be hosting two sessons at Bloody Scotland, if you fancy a nice weekend break hearing from the best crime-writers in idyllic Stirling.

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Ruth Ware is an international bestseller, who has just published her 7th crime thriller, 'The It Girl'.

It tells the story of April, a vivacious, bright girl at the University of Oxford, who quickly draws a group of friends into her dazzling orbit. Until, one morning she is found dead. 10 years later, new information surfaces about the crime, and changes Hannah's life... her testimony was key to sending a man to prison. It means, one of her friends might have done killed 'The It Girl'.

Ruth's books, 'The Lying Game', 'The Woman in Cabin 10', 'In a Dark, Dark Wood', 'The Death of Mrs Westaway', 'The Turn of the Key', and 'One by One' have all been huge bestsellers, and there's a lot of noise about her new novel.

We discuss her move from YA to adult, crime fiction. Also why the hardest part of writing crime, is figuring out why someone will try to solve the mystery. You can hear how she gets through the tricky 30k word mark, and why her writing space is almost perfect.

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This week, we chat to Sarah Pearse. Her debut novel, 'The Sanatorium', was the best selling debut fiction book of 2021. It was a New York Tiimes and Sunday Times bestseller, a Waterstones Thriller of the Month, and a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick.

Her new one is called, 'The Retreat'. Set on an eco-wellness retreat on an island near Devon, it promises rest and relaxation, yet the locals believe it to have a cursed past. When a young woman is found murdered nearby, DS Elin Warner is called in to investigate.

We chat about how her writing routine is slightly dictated by family, where she moves for inspiration, and how she changes scenes that she wrote in the first few days of an idea.

You can hear how much she thinks about pacing and structure when writing genre, why her best thoughts come at night, and how she found moving from short stories to full on novels.

This week's episode of the show is supported by 'Believe Me Not', the fantastic new novel by Natalie Chandler.

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Andrew White is a do-er. He's written factual pieces for BBC Countryfile magazine, Rail Britain, written AA Guidebooks, and runs the Walks Around Britain YouTube channel and presents its TV shows.

During lockdown, Andrew found that there wasn't much call for long-form walks around the country, when everyone was told to stay inside, so found a new outlet for his creativity. He started coming up with plot-lines for his first novel. He came up with over 30 of them, and 'The Walker Mysteries' were born. The first is 'A New World', which sees DCI Charlotte Walker investigating a local mystery.

We talk about how wrote a female character around 20 years younger than him, also why he chose to self-publish, and why he's currently writing 3 books at once.

Also you can hear how technology really helps him as a dyslexic writer, how he spreads his creative energy across different things, and how far in the future he's thinking with these stories.

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