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Crime Reading Month

Crime Reading Month

Crime Reading Month

Julie Anderson reveals the highlights for Crime Reading Month in June

June is National Crime Reading Month

So why not pick up a crime book in June – thriller, cosy mystery, true-crime or dark psychological noir. The Crime Writers Association of the UK has partnered with The Reading Agency to launch #NCRM with events all over the country, but many in London. The month kicks off with a bang on the 1st June with a launch at Waterstones, Piccadilly, where Red Hot Chilli Writers pod-cast host Abir Mukherjee  (his The Shadows of Men has been listed for this year’s Historical Dagger Award) will be chatting to bestselling crime authors Lisa Jewell, L J Ross and Nadine Matheson. Tickets cost £6 and are available from Eventbrite, there will be lots of crime writers there (some of them famous) so this is likely to be a hot ticket.  It is only the start, there will be a range of events throughout the month – check your local library for details or take a look at crimereading.com.

In south London on 8 June there is Sister Sleuths at Clapham Books (26, The Pavement, SW4 0JA) with three female crime writers each of whom has a female sleuth, get together to talk about how the female of the species really is more deadly than the male. Anne Coates sets her Hannah Weybridge series in Dulwich and, most recently, in The Old Vic in Stage Call, Alice Castle’s Beth Haldane books range across Dulwich (Death in Dulwich), Herne Hill, Sydenham and Belsize Park while my own Cassandra Fortune, of Plague and Oracle, lives in Clapham, even if much of the action in my books takes place in Westminster. Then ‘Sister Sleuths’ goes on tour to East Dulwich and Sydenham. Free to attend, from 6.30pm for 7. Please contact the book shops to register interest.

On 9 June, if you happen to be in Woking, why not join Nikki Smith, author of All In Her Head and Look What You Made Me Do at Woking Library at 7.30pm. Tickets £8. In Herne Hill, on 14 June, as part of Lambeth Writers and Readers Festival Gerald Jacobs will be discussing Pomeranski, his crime novel set in 1950s Jewish Brixton (yes, there was such a thing and it’s captured perfectly in the book). At the Carnegie Library, SE2 0AG this starts at 7pm and is free to attend.

On 18 June there is Bodies from the Library a full day of events at The Knowledge Centre (The British Library), Euston Road celebrating the Golden Age of detective fiction with Martin Edwards, Jake Kerridge, Moira Redmond and Caroline Crampton (on Japanese detective fiction) among others. For lovers of ‘classic’ crime fiction.

Two best-selling London-based authors, Nadine Matheson and CWA Dagger Winning Vaseem Khan are #NCRM Ambassadors who will be appearing at events across the capital and beyond. But the emphasis of #NCRM is on readers, book groups and libraries to create their own events; the crimereading.com website incudes, at time of writing, over 60 crime writers ready and willing to attend events. Their books include cosy mysteries, gangland thrillers, domestic noir and police procedurals, to name but some sub-genres; if it’s crime, it’ll be covered. Why not get in touch with some of them? Crimereading.com also has a range of tools and tips available to help folk publicise and promote their events, which will be listed on the site and promoted in social media. So, go online and start creating. Or come along to some of the events near you.