Last week People magazine named Sandra Bullock as the most beautiful woman in the world this year. This cheered me a lot, I’ve always liked Sandra Bullock – she seems great fun and the kind of woman I’d like to be my friend. She seems not to take the Hollywood hoopla too seriously…
The Execution of Noa P. Singleton
19 March 2014 by Leave a Comment
I love living in Britain, for all of its faults I genuinely believe that it is a good country. Things do go wrong, but generally we have a just society and part of the cornerstones of that justice is our lack of the death penalty. I’m sure others would disagree but I’m not sure how a society can regard itself as fair when it is happy to kill people…
World Book Night 2014 Books Announced
26 November 2013 by Leave a Comment
The last year has certainly passed by in a flash. It seems only a couple of weeks since I was giving out copies of The No1 Ladies Detective Agency for World Book Night 2013 and now the list of books for World Book Night 2014 has been released. It’s an interesting list…
Skipping Christmas
13 December 2011 by 1 Comment
I love Christmas, as is probably evident from the fact that I’m running a 12 Days of Christmas series. I love the gifts, the sentimentality and the sheer corniness of the whole season. I cry at films like Miracle on 34th Street and White Christmas…
It shouldn’t be this hard to find a Christmas book…
9 December 2011 by Leave a Comment
I started planning my 12 Days of Christmas feature in a little tinselly flurry. I was going to have so many posts that it would take me months to write them all…
The Confession
30 August 2011 by Leave a Comment
The Confession is John Grisham’s latest legal thriller for adults and is currently riding high in the paperback chart. Fans of Grisham’s work are in for a treat when they buy it.
James Patterson is the world’s highest paid author
23 August 2011 by Leave a Comment
Crime writer James Patterson is the world’s best paid author according to Forbes magazine. Creator the Detective Alex Cross and the Women’s Murder Club, Patterson earned a mind-blowing £50.9 million last year ($84 million). Second placed writer was romance queen Danielle Steel who looks like a pauper in comparison, having earned a paltry £21 million. Other familiar names on the list include Stephen King, John Grisham and Stephanie Meyer, creator of the Twilight series. I think I’m going to get into this writing lark. £50 million a year sounds like a nice little earner – just about enough to keep up with my movie and book habit…
Top Ten: Crime Writers
19 August 2011 by 9 Comments
Every so often I worry that I’m not a “serious” enough reader. I don’t scour the new literary releases looking for the critics’ choice as my next purchase. I don’t obsessively plough my way through the shortlists of the highbrow book prizes. That’s not to say that I don’t read any literary fiction at all, but offered the choice of a Booker Prize winner or a good crime thriller I’d pick the latter any day of the week.
There is a wealth of enjoyable crime fiction available and hundreds of new and established crime novelists but I tend to find myself returning to the same authors over and over again. Here, in alphabetical order, are my top ten crime writers.