Latest news with #crimefiction
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Queen Camilla set to feature in whodunnit thriller starring her 'favourite detective'
As its claret-coloured carriages clatter off the tracks, a shot rings in the air. Just who has derailed the royal train with Queen Camilla on board, is this really an assassination attempt - or could there be an even more sinister murder afoot? Fortunately no-one is likely to be more thrilled to find themselves taking a leading role in their own royal whodunit than Her Majesty The Queen. A voracious reader, who is partial to a good crime thriller - the twistier, the better - she is, the Mail can reveal, about to star in the latest 'Roy Grace' novel, the multi-million selling literary sensation by British writer Peter James. It can even be disclosed that Camilla had something of a hand in the gripping new plot, having suggested to James some time ago that he might want to set his legendary Brighton-based detective's latest case in London. 'And where better in London than Buckingham Palace?' the writer says. While not endorsed by the palace, James has nevertheless had the opportunity for some 'extensive behind-the-scenes research' there, as well as 'insights' from members of The Royal Household - including the Queen herself. Making the identities of those at the heart of 'The Hawk is Dead: A Killer in the Palace' all the more intriguing. The book, which will be published by Pan Macmillan on October 21, is set to become a global bestseller. 'Opening with a cinematic derailment of the royal train, The Hawk is dead takes Roy Grace deep into the heart of Buckingham Palace, where he is called upon to solve a murder and what looks to be a royal assassination attempt,' its publishers told the Mail yesterday. 'Queen Camilla, a well-known book-lover and reading champion through her charity, The Queen's Reading Room, has always been one of the first people to receive each Grace novel and is excited to have a starring role, alongside His Majesty King Charles, in Peter's latest thriller.' It is understood that Camilla, 77, has already had a sneak peak at this as yet unpublished one too. James, who was born and brought up in Sussex where his books are based and now lives on Jersey, has 21 Sunday Times No.1 bestsellers under his belt and sold over 23 million copies worldwide. His Roy Grace series has also been made into a television show staring John Simm, with the fifth series having just been aired and a sixth in production. Her Majesty has made no secret of being a fan, having named James as her favourite crime writer. The two have founded an unlikely but firm friendship over the years, with the Queen visiting the set of 'Grace' in 2021 and James becoming a dedicated supporter of her 200,000-strong online book club and charity The Queen's Reading Room, designed to promote a love of literature and passion to improve literacy. James, who said he was 'moved to tears' by her nomination of Grace as her favourite detective because of the novels' 'pretty terrifying' storylines and the hero's tragic personal life, said: 'It's a decade since I discovered Queen Camilla is my No.1 fan and we've since built up a great rapport. 'She asked me when I might set a Roy Grace novel in London … and the seed was sown. Where better in London than Buckingham Palace? 'It has been the most fascinating research I've ever done, learning about the inner workings of the Royal Household and the Palace.' James added: 'I came up with an idea, which I ran by Her Majesty – and she loved it. Throughout the writing of the novel, during which I've done extensive behind-the-scenes research at the Palace, I have received invaluable insights from members of the Royal Household, including Her Majesty herself. 'The story begins with Queen Camilla travelling on the Royal Train to Brighton to begin a tour of hospices along the South Coast, but the train is derailed in a tunnel just north of the city. As she and her entourage emerge, a shot rings out and a member of the Royal Household is killed. 'Detective Superintendent Roy Grace takes charge of the investigation, which is being treated by everyone – except him – as an assassination attempt on The Queen. But Roy thinks there is something else going on. A second killing, this time inside the Palace, indicates he might be right . . .' He also revealed that the plot centres around a conspiracy 'deep in the Royal Household' to take advantage of the current - real life - building works going on there, a ten-year renovation programme of all 375 rooms. 'The conspirators are stealing items from the Royal Collection, 64,000 priceless pieces that have been moved into temporary storage, and are selling them to foreign buyers on the dark web,' he added. Buckingham Palace declined to comment, although aides stressed that writers had long been offered access for research purposes and 'The Hawk is Dead' was not endorsed by the royal household. Others also wryly noted the old adage that 'any resemblance to personas living… or dead… is purely coincidental'.
Wall Street Journal
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Cooler Than Cool' Review: Elmore Leonard's Life of Crime
'Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.' So reads the 10th of '10 Rules of Writing' (2007) by Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), the New Orleans-born, Detroit-raised, Hollywood-savvy author who changed the nature of crime stories (in print and on screen) while becoming one of the most successful and highly regarded writers of his genre and generation.
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Horrible Histories creator Terry Deary: ‘What's the use of universities?'
One day, it dawned on Terry Deary that his favourite crime novels are overrun with characters who have heaps of money, or a degree, or both. ' Agatha Christie, Lord Peter Wimsey, the golden age of crime writing – it's pure Establishment,' he says. The same holds true for his contemporary standbys, Anthony Horowitz ('That man is a genius') and Simon Brett. By contrast, says Deary – who is better known as the brains behind the Horrible Histories series for children – in Actually, I'm a Murderer, his first adult crime novel, 'only about two out of 20 characters went to university'. This will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Horrible Histories. Those books, 70-odd titles that have together sold some 30 million copies, have enlivened great tracts of the past for generations of children by relaying with irresistible delight the viscera of history and the experience of the common man. In them, monarchs and world leaders are usually depicted as monsters or figures of fun: the Romans are 'evil'; the Tudors, tyrants. Deary reserves a particular loathing for Elizabeth I, and he is not at all a fan of the British Empire. 'I get a lot of abuse for it,' he tells me; he's even been accused of 'poisoning the minds of children. But I can't believe anyone would possibly justify the British Empire.' Thirty-two years after the publication of the first Horrible Histories book, Deary says he's done with writing children's books. 'I've written hundreds of them. There's another mountain to climb now.' Actually, I'm a Murderer is the first instalment in what he hopes will develop into a long-running series (he's already written book two) featuring John Brown, an assassin-for-hire in 1970s Sunderland, where Deary grew up. The premise inverts the classic crime thriller setup: we know whodunnit from the beginning; the fun lies in the protracted game of cat and mouse between Brown and the police who, in the first book at least, Deary paints as incompetent, sexist and bigoted. 'Only the men,' he corrects me – the hero of the novel, Aline, is a policewoman fighting her repulsive, handsy colleague for promotion. 'Female police are underrated. When I published a murder mystery for young adults 20 years ago, the editor made me tone down the incompetence of the book's bent policeman,' he adds. 'I had to make the police look better and focus on solving the mystery. I don't think you would get that today.' In fact, Deary is quite a fan of the police, despite having been 'beaten blue' by them when he was a 'naughty nipper'; his dad ran a butcher's shop and Deary says his impoverished childhood 'in a postwar slum' taught him 'how real people lived'. I ask him what he thinks of the Metropolitan Police today, hit by a string of appalling scandals. 'Police are human beings. No one can live up to the expectations that are placed on the police.' Deary, who lives in County Durham with his wife, Jenny, with whom he has one grown-up daughter, was already a successful children's author when he was commissioned to do a history joke book in the early 1990s. He had begun writing in 1976 while working as a drama teacher in Suffolk. He maintains he didn't know much history at the time, although he studied it at A-Level. But then, his intention was never to educate. 'I didn't set out to enlighten their little minds or even get them to read,' he says. 'That just happened.' His main influence was his previous career as an actor: he had spent a few years in the early 1970s with Theatr Powys, in Wales. 'The aim of drama is to answer one question only – why do people behave the way they do? I applied that to my books. Look how they behaved in the past and learn from that.' Today, Horrible Histories is part of the cultural landscape – widely read in schools and embraced by the middle classes. 'Isn't that sickening?' says Deary. 'It's like Mick Jagger. He presents himself as anti-Establishment and then he accepts a knighthood. I hope I never sell out like that.' Fair enough, but the brand is already enormously lucrative – there are theatre, film and television adaptations, and even a Horrible Histories interactive cruise along the Thames, for which Deary writes the voiceover. Is he worried that the brand's original rebel spirit is becoming diluted? 'Horrible Histories is not my brand. I just write the books,' he says. 'And I take no credit for the spin-offs.' He rejects, too, the suggestion that Horrible Histories inculcate an inherently flippant attitude towards the past. 'You forget how boring history books for children were before I came along. Endless parents tell me their child never read a book until they picked up Horrible Histories. Although when people tell me that thanks to my books they studied history at university, I say 'Don't blame me, mate', because what use are universities?' Deary can come across as a bit of a throwback 1980s anarchist. He's famously against the education system, partly because he was caned repeatedly at his primary school. 'I'm against schooling. Not against education,' he clarifies. 'But you need to get rid of the muppets in Whitehall who write the curriculum which applies to every child in this country, when they wouldn't know a child from Newcastle or Sunderland if it thumped them on the kneecap.' He spits at whatever Labour might be planning to address this: it launched a review of the school curriculum at the end of last year. 'It's just tokenism, sorry. You need to get rid of it.' I assume, then, that he is not too concerned by the drop in students reading history at university? He himself never got the chance to go: his teachers suggested when he was 18 that he 'get a job down the pits'; instead, he worked at the electricity board. 'People don't have to waste taxpayers' money spending four years going to this place called university and not working when they can read my books [instead],' he says. I think he means it. 'But it's not my problem. I'm a book writer.' But surely, I suggest, the facts and intellectual rigour taught at university are important tools both for understanding the counter-imperialist view of history he favours and also for combating the growing threat of AI-generated misinformation? In lieu of an answer, Deary tells me how when people hear about a mother who lost her children in a bombing raid during the Second World War, they assume it took place in London or Coventry. 'But it took place in Dresden, too. Everyone comes up with a British-educated answer. But it happened to them as well as us.' I try again. What does Deary think about the ways in which we are rethinking our imperial past – the growing acknowledgment of the extent to which modern Britain was built on profits from the slave trade; the Rhodes Must Fall movement, which argues for the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford? That, he says, is 'actually quite a good idea. Although they should be arguing to take all the statues down, including Lord bloody Nelson in Trafalgar Square. But it's a minority view. Imperialists are taking over the country.' Including, perhaps, in Sunderland – Deary left the city in the early 1970s, but maintains close links – where Reform won 27 per cent of the vote in the last election. Why does he think that happened? 'Because Farage is a big personality,' he says. 'People aren't voting for his policies, but for the man. So don't ask me to condemn my Sunderland friends.' Quite the opposite, I say. Isn't it only because such voters feel let down by the Establishment that they find themselves drawn to Reform in the first place? 'That, I admit, does sway people,' Deary says. 'They think the Conservatives have had their chance but they mucked it up, so we'll try Labour. Oh, they aren't doing so well, so we'll try a third option.' Deary is a tremendous force in publishing – and proud of it: he points out that the paperback edition of his recent nonfiction book A History of Britain in Ten Enemies topped the bestseller charts. 'Not bad for a lad from Sunderland, eh?' He has no plans to stop, nor any intention of toning things down. 'I'm an entertainer, not an academic. And if I don't entertain people, they won't engage.' Actually, I'm a Murderer by Terry Deary (Constable, £18.99) is out on June 12
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Being a bestselling author is like being a pop star again, says REVEREND RICHARD COLES
The Reverend Richard Coles is an author, radio presenter and Church of England vicar, writes York Membery. The 63-year-old shot to fame in 1986 as half of the pop duo The Communards, who topped the charts with Don't Leave Me This Way – the UK's biggest single of that year. Ordained in 2005, he won BBC Celebrity Mastermind in 2014 and co-presented the BBC Radio 4 show, Saturday Live, for 12 years, stepping down in 2023. In 2022 he published the first of several crime novels, the bestselling Murder Before Evensong, which has been adapted for television and airs this autumn. He lives with his partner, actor Richard Cant, in East Sussex. What did your parents teach you about money? My father Nigel inherited a prosperous family shoe-making business, which had lasted four generations in Northamptonshire, but it vanished on his watch in the 1970s due to cheap imports – so we went from being reasonably well-off to being a bit harder up. My dad would have actually been happier as an academic, despite coming from a long line of hard-nosed businessmen, but a bit of that hard-nosedness has rubbed off on me. My mother Liz was thrifty, in the way that war children were. But my parents splurged on good food and good holidays. My outlook towards money has changed over the years. I was a rampant socialist in my youth but am more of a 'centrist dad' now, as well as being a devout Christian. Have you struggled to make ends meet? Yes, when I first came to London in 1980, aged 18, I spent four or five years on the dole or scratching a living as a busker. So I know what it's like to be completely skint and to even have to go without food at times. That said, I could always 'phone a friend', as it were, so I was never destitute. I've always had a fear of falling into debt, but I've not ended up in the workhouse yet. Have you ever been paid silly money? I went from being on the dole to being a pop star – it was like a lottery win – but overnight success didn't really serve me well. It was all so sudden and unexpected, and I was in my 20s, that I p****d most of it up against the wall – and a lot of it went up my nose or other people's noses. What was the best year of your financial life? The year 1988 was pretty good because by then the royalties were rolling in from The Communards. We sold well around the world [their Never Can Say Goodbye single sold two million copies], though touring was loss-making in those days. I'm probably better off now than ever before. Being a bestselling author is the nearest thing to being a pop star again, and has been very financially rewarding. But this time I'm investing in Isas rather than putting it up my nose. The most expensive thing you bought for fun? A Bosendorfer piano. They are one of the big five piano-makers, and they are very good for those specialising in a German / Austrian classical music repertoire, though a lot of jazz pianists use them too. It's equivalent in value to the car you buy when you have a mid-life crisis. I play it every day. What is your biggest money mistake? I'm the only person who didn't make money on the London property market in the 1980s. I bought an end of terrace Georgian house in Islington for £160,000 at the peak of the property market and sold it at the absolute trough in the early 1990s, just about breaking even. If I'd hung on to it, I'd be sitting very pretty. Best money decision you have made? Taking out a pension when I was in The Communards, though it was really my manager's decision, Lorna Gradden, rather than mine. Some bands might get ripped off by their manager but I was greatly enriched by mine, who set up an extremely favourable pension scheme for me when I was 23, securing guaranteed annuities too, which has made life much easier for me since reaching 60 three years ago. Whenever I meet young people who are starting out in showbusiness I always tell them to start paying into a pension at the earliest opportunity. When you're 25, the idea of being 60 is unimaginable, but it comes, and when it does come you'll be grateful for that pension. I'm not sure I'll ever fully retire, but I'd like to take things a bit quieter when I reach 65. Will you pass down your money or spend it all? I'd like to make sure my partner Richard is financially secure if I pre-decease him, and I'll pass on money to my five nephews and nieces. Of course, they've now got an incentive to murder! I'll also leave money to the charity Parkinson's UK – my father died from the disease – several church charities, and a charity supporting the sub-postmasters until they get the compensation they are owed. Do you own any property? Yes, an 18th century cottage with a couple of bedrooms in a small village in East Sussex, where I have a lot of friends, close to the sea. I'll stay here for as long as I can manage the stairs. The only downside when you buy an old property made of local materials is that you find that you've become a historic buildings curator and you need to get specialist people to fix things. If you were Chancellor what would you do? Invest in infrastructure and get the roads and railways working, to try to arrest that daily crumbling decline that you see wherever you go, because it just stifles growth and prosperity. I know everyone slags off the Chancellor, but I'm glad to see the Government is going to moderate changes to winter fuel payments. What is your number one financial priority? To ensure I've got enough to pay for my care needs, and those of my dependents. A Death On Location, by Rev Richard Coles, is published in hardback on Thursday, priced £22. He is currently touring theatres around the UK with his one-man show (
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
One of our finest writers of mystery and detection: The best Classic Crime novels out now - Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert, Silence After Dinner by Clifford Witting, Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie
Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert (British Library £8.99, 272pp) A practicing lawyer who wrote his crime fiction on his daily commute into London, Michael Gilbert was at his peak when Smallbone Deceased was first published in 1950. The plot is tantalisingly bizarre. An eminently respectable firm of solicitors is thrown into disarray when a corpse is found stuffed into a deed box. With the police up against a conspiracy of silence, the challenge of solving the murder is met by the recently qualified Henry Bohun. The insomniac Henry occupies the twilight hours by uncovering financial chicanery. Gilbert stands as one of our finest writers of mystery and detection. For Smallbone Deceased, he is on top form. Silence After Dinner by Clifford Witting (Galileo £10.99, 244pp) An anonymous diarist writing at the time of the communist takeover in China confesses to a brutal murder. The scene then shifts to an English village, where the new rector has a missionary background in the Far East. Among those sharing the Chinese connection is his predecessor's wastrel son and a wandering hell-fire preacher who, knowing too much, ends up in a watery grave. The job of linking a rural outpost on the South Downs with a revolution on the other side of the world falls to the methodical Inspector Bradfield, who has to contend with small-minded bigotry in his hunt for a cold-hearted killer. Joining the growing contingent of rediscovered mystery writers from the 1950s, Clifford Witting weaves an enthralling story. If the love interest stretches credibility, the leading characters are convincingly portrayed. Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie (Harper Fiction £14.99, 256pp) Agatha Christie had a genius for ringing the changes on the traditional mystery formula. In Dumb Witness, reissued in a handsome hardback edition, Hercule Poirot receives a letter from an elderly lady who hints at an attempt on her life. Poirot is intrigued, not so much by the letter itself as by the fact that it was posted two months after the sender had died, apparently from natural causes. The indomitable detective intrudes on a family at war, having discovered that the wealthy spinster had left all her money to her irritatingly fussy companion. Was it the beneficiary of the will who had hurried the process or another of the household who had hoped for unjust deserts? To add to the complications, a boisterous terrier, the dumb witness, may have contributed to the death of his mistress.
