21st September 2019

Elly Griffiths, William Shaw and Lesley Thomson discuss the settings of their novels and how a place can become just as much a character as the heroes.

Elly Griffiths wrote four novels under her own name (Domenica de Rosa) before turning to crime with The Crossing Places, the first novel featuring forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway. 

The Crossing Places won the Mary Higgins Clark award and three novels in the series have been shortlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year. The Stone Circle (Ruth #11) was published in February 2019 and was a Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller. 

Elly also writes the Brighton Mysteries, set in the theatrical world of the 1950s. In 2016 Elly was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library for her body of work. Her first standalone mystery, The Stranger Diaries, was a Richard and Judy book club selection and was the Times Crime Novel of the Year 2018. She has also recently published a children’s crime novel, A Girl Called Justice.

Find Elly at www.ellygriffiths.co.uk

William Shaw’s latest book Deadland has been long-listed for the CWA Gold Dagger and the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Novel of The Year and was picked as one of the Sunday Times Summer Reads of 2019. 

Set in Dungeness, his crime series featuring DS Alexandra Cupidi, grew out of his standalone crime novel The Birdwatcher, hailed by The Sun as “a contender for thriller of the year” and praised by Peter May as “the most gripping book I’ve read in years.” The first novel in the series, Salt Lane, is currently in development for TV.

Before becoming a crime writer, William Shaw was an award-winning music journalist and the author of several non-fiction books including Westsiders, about a year spent with the young men of South Central Los Angeles, and A Superhero For Hire, a compilation of columns in the Observer Magazine.

Find William at williamshaw.com

Lesley Thomson’s first novel, Seven Miles From Sydney, came out in 1987 when it made  the City Limits top ten best books.  In 1990, she worked with actor Sue Johnston on her semi-autobiographical book, Hold Onto The Messy Times.

While reading for an MA in English Literature at Sussex University, Lesley wrote A Kind of Vanishing. It won the People’s Book prize for fiction in 2010.

A guest tutor on the Creative Writing and Publishing MA at West Dean, Lesley also runs a crime-writing short course with top crime writer Elly Griffiths, and leads workshops and master classes on writing crime novels.

Lesley is author of the best-selling The Detective’s Daughter series, featuring Stella Darnell (MD of Clean Slate Cleaning Services) and Jack Harmon, driver on London Underground’s District Line. Oh, and not forgetting Stanley the poodle.

Find Lesley at lesleythomson.co.uk

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