MURDER MYSTERY
HISTORICAL
EDITOR’S CHOICE
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A Responsibility to the Past
My new crime series is set in Clapham, south London, during the years immediately after the second World War, from 1946 to 1951. Its locations are real places clustered around Clapham Common at Clapham South Underground station. Some of these places are highly unusual, some still exist (although they have been repurposed) and others can be visited today.

Villainy on the High Seas – Hurds Bank
Hurd’s Bank has, since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, become a centre of fuel smuggling from conflict-ridden Libya and increasingly sophisticated, sanction-busting operations involving Russian oil.
Love Letters Straight From The Crime Writer’s Parents
Childhood memories - the good ones at least - are wonderful things, but how do you bottle them, especially those from the days when a photograph was an exception rather than a rule?
Do You Want to Know a Secret?
Everybody has a secret. Yes you do! A study revealed that the average person keeps thirteen secrets, five of which he or she has never shared with anyone.
The Ancient Detective
Rome has had her fair share of fictional mystery solvers – Lindsey Davis gave us Marcus Didius Falco, there is Gordianus the Finder from Steven Saylor, Marcus Corvinus from David Wishart and Decius Metellus the Younger from John Maddox Roberts – and these are just my top four. But when you look carefully they have one thing in common: none of them are what we would call detectives, or police officials.
Caelius and the Poisoned Finger
On the 4th April 56 BCE, the lawyer, orator and politician Cicero stood up to make his speech in defence of a friend, Caelius Rufus. The speech figures on many an A-level set text and is huge fun to teach, for Cicero is at his best, witty, dramatic and brimming with energy.

The denarius
Fiona Forsyth on the denarius minted in 43 BCE in Asia Minor for the army of Brutus.

The History behind the DCI Frank Merlin Books
As celebrations this year spotlight those years of action on the battlefield, the author of historical thrillers discusses the boom in wartime crime that sets the foundations for his series.

Crime in Blitz London
London saw plenty of criminals taking advantage of the chaos of the German bombings.
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