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♠ You can buy THE HARBOUR MASTER from your local bookstore or online from Amazon

Henk van der Pol is a 30-year-term policeman, a few months off retirement. When he finds a woman's body in Amsterdam Harbour, his detective instincts take over, even though it's not his jurisdiction. Warned off investigating the case, Henk soon realises he can trust nobody, as his search for the killer leads him to discover the involvement of senior police officers, government corruption in the highest places, Hungarian people traffickers, and a deadly threat to his own family...

'A debut novelist of rare skill' - Financial Times

Panel 10: Femmes Fatales 8pm–10pm, Sunday 12 July #BritCrime

BritCrime Panel 10: Femmes Fatales

8pm–10pm UK Time | 1pm–3pm EST
Sunday 12 July

Live Q&A with the authors hosted on our Facebook page

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Helen Giltrow: The Distance

It's a suicide mission, and quite probably a set-up. So why can't she say no?

A blistering debut thriller that introduces the coolest heroine in contemporary suspense fiction. They don't call her Karla anymore. She's Charlotte Alton: she doesn't trade in secrets, she doesn't erase dark pasts, and she doesn't break hit-men into prison. Except that is exactly what she's been asked to do. The job is impossible: get the assassin into an experimental new prison so that he can take out a target who isn't officially there. It's a suicide mission, and quite probably a set-up. So why can't she say no?

 Helen Giltrow is a former bookseller and editor whose writing has been shortlisted for the CWA’s Debut Dagger Award. Her first novel The Distance – a dark suspense thriller set in the world of criminal espionage, with a strong female lead – has been hailed by Lee Child as 'fast, hard and very, very good'.

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Ava Marsh: Untouchable

A gritty commercial thriller with an addictive blend of sex and intrigue...

‘If you start feeling anything for a client – and it does happen – count the money. That always brings you back down to earth.’

 Stella is an escort, immersed in a world of desire, betrayal and secrets. It’s exactly where she wants to be. Stella used to be someone else: respectable, loved, safe. But one mistake changed all that.

When a fellow call girl is murdered, Stella has a choice: forget what she’s seen, or risk everything to get justice for her friend. In her line of work, she’s never far from the edge, but pursuing the truth could take her past the point of no return.

Nothing is off limits. Not for her – and not for them. But no one is truly untouchable.

Ava Marsh grew up in Margate, Kent. A former broadsheet journalist, she gave it up to work in the charity sector and write dark and rather risqué thrillers. She now resides in Battersea, London, and spends her spare time running, kayaking, and hanging out in cyberspace.

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Marnie Riches: The Girl Who Wouldn't Die

He's watching her. She doesn't know it yet...

When a bomb explodes at the University of Amsterdam, aspiring criminologist Georgina McKenzie is asked by the police to help flush out the killer. But the bomb is part of a much bigger, more sinister plot that will have the entire city quaking in fear. And the killer has a very special part for George to play…

A thrilling race against time with a heroine you’ll be rooting for, this book will keep you up all night!  
 Marnie Riches grew up on a rough estate in Manchester. She learned her way out of the ghetto, all the way to Cambridge University, where she gained a Masters degree in German & Dutch. She has been a punk, a trainee rock star, a pretend artist, a property developer and professional fundraiser. Previously a children's author, now, she writes crime and contemporary women's fiction. Marnie Riches is the author of The Girl Who Wouldn't Die - the first installment of the George McKenzie crime thriller series, published by Maze and Avon at Harper Collins. In her spare time, Marnie likes to run (more of a long distance shuffle, really) travel, drink and eat all the things (especially if combined with travel) paint portraits, sniff expensive leather shoes (what woman doesn't?) and renovate old houses. She also adores flowers.

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Full programme here: http://britcrime.com/programme 

Facebook page: http://facebook.com/britcrime
Twitter: @britcrime
Keep up to date with Festival news: http://britcrime.com/newsletter 

Panel 9: Foreign Bodies: 6pm–8pm, Sunday 12 July #BritCrime

BritCrime Panel 9: Foreign Bodies

6pm–8pm UK Time | 11am–1pm EST
Sunday 12 July

Live Q&A with the authors hosted on our Facebook page

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Quentin Bates: Summerchill

An Icelandic murder mystery...

It's the tail end of a hot summer when half of Reykjavík is on holiday and the other half wishes it was. Things are quiet when a man is reported missing from his home in the suburbs. As Gunna and Helgi investigate, it becomes clear that the missing man had secrets of his own that lead to a sinister set of friends, and to someone with little to lose who is a fugitive from both justice and the underworld. It becomes a challenge for Gunna to tail both the victim and his would-be executioner, racing to catch up with at least one of them before they finally meet.

Quentin Bates escaped suburbia as a teenager for a decade in Iceland before eventually returning to England. A former seaman, he fell into writing books largely by accident via an accidental career in journalism and now writes crime novels set in his adopted second home in Iceland. He is the translator of number one bestseller Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson.

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M J McGrath: The Bone Seeker

 A gripping, atmospheric thriller set in the Arctic's long white nights...
A missing girl. A dark betrayal. Summer in the High Arctic. When young Inuit Martha Salliaq goes missing from her settlement, her teacher, ex Polar Bear Hunter Edie Kiglatuk enlists her police friend Derek Palliser to help search for the girl. But once a body is discovered floating in a polluted lake on the site of a decommissioned Radar Station, Edie's worst fears are realised.

As the investigation into Martha's murder begins, the Inuit community - and Martha's devastated family - are convinced the culprits lie within the encampment of soldiers stationed nearby. Before long Sergeant Palliser finds evidence linking two of the men with the dead girl. But Edie and local lawyer Sonia Gutierrez remain unconvinced. Why are the military quite so willing to cooperate with the investigation? What has Edie's boyfriend Chip Muloon, a simple academic researcher, got to hide? And why has the lake where Martha's body was found been suddenly cordoned off?

 A gripping, atmospheric thriller set in the Arctic's long white nights, in The Bone Seeker the very personal murder of a young girl will explode a decades-long tale of the very darkest betrayal. This is the third novel in the hugely compelling Edie Kiglatuk series, set in the Artic's long summer nights.

 Melanie McGrath is a journalist and author of bestselling nonfiction. As MJ McGrath, she writes the Edie Kiglatuk series of Arctic mysteries.The series has been translated into 18 languages. The Bone Seeker has been long listed for the 2015 CWA Gold Dagger and is a Financial Times crime pick of the year. 

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K T Medina: White Crocodile

A web of lies that stretches from Cambodia back to England...

When emotionally damaged mine-clearer Tess Hardy travels to Cambodia to find out the truth behind her ex-husband's death, she doesn't know much about the country or its beliefs.

On arrival, she finds that teenage mothers are going missing, while others are being found mutilated and murdered.

As local superstitions breed fear, Tess is drawn into a web of lies that stretches from Cambodia to another murder in England, and a violent secret twenty years old. 

K. T. Medina spent five years in the Territorial Army, first as an officer trainee and then as a Troop Commander in the Royal Engineers. She has worked at Jane's Information Group and McKinsey and Company, and as a lecturer at London Business School. Whilst at Jane's she spent time in Cambodia, working with mine clearance charities. She now writes full time.

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Daniel Pembrey: The Harbour Master

Ice-cold suspense in this Amsterdam noir tale as the search for a killer takes maverick copy Henk into a corrupt world of politics and power...

Maverick cop Henk van der Pol is thinking about retirement when he finds a woman’s body in Amsterdam Harbour. His detective instincts take over, even though it’s not his case. But Henk’s bigger challenge is deciding who his friends are – not to mention a vicious street pimp who is threatening Henk’s own family. As his search for the killer of the woman in Amsterdam Harbour takes him into a corrupt world of politics and power, Henk finds himself facing some murky moral choices.

The Harbour Master delivers for Amsterdam what fans of Scandinavian crime fiction have come to love: a fascinating light shone on the dark side of a famously liberal society, combining vivid characterisation with ice-cold suspense.

 Daniel Pembrey grew up beside Sherwood Forest, studied history at Edinburgh University, then worked for ten years at a technology company in Seattle and later Luxembourg. He now writes crime thrillers with a strongly ‘Euro noir’ flavour. To write The Habour Master, he spent several months living in the docklands area of Amsterdam, counting De Druif bar as his local ...

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Full programme here: http://britcrime.com/programme 

Facebook page: http://facebook.com/britcrime
Twitter: @britcrime
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"The Girl Who Wouldn't Die" is shortlisted for a Dead Good Readers' Award - most exotic location!

Available on Amazon for 99p!

by Marnie Riches
I almost fell off the rickety old chair in my writing cave the other day, when I discovered that my debut crime-thriller, "The Girl Who Wouldn't Die" had been shortlisted for a Dead Good Readers' Award - namely The Patricia Highsmith Award for Most Exotic Location.

This first installment in the George McKenzie series only came out in early April 2015. I've been bowled over with delight by how well the book has been received by BritCrime readers. It seems that I'm not the only one who was waiting to read a thriller that was reminiscent of successful Scandi-noir series, but set somewhere with a little sweet and sour - zoet-zuur - flavour to it.

I chose Amsterdam as the main location for my series, because I used to live in The Netherlands when I was the same age as George. Like her, I was intoxicated by the heady mix of period architecture, grandeur and sleaze. Amsterdam's red light district is like nowhere else on earth. To see the thong-clad women in their red-lit booths; to stroll along the cobbled streets that flank the city's inky canals and pop into a coffee shop for a joint; to spend your tourist Euros on some strap-on erotic contraption in a sex-shop and then make your way to the galleries, eateries and museums all within the same twenty four hours is nothing short of bonkers! For me, it presented the perfect exotic location in which to set a crime-thriller!

So, if you agree that Amsterdam would be the best contender for this prestigious Patricia Highsmith Award for the most exotic location in a crime novel, I'd be so grateful if you'd cast your vote in The Girl's direction. There is a smorgasbord of exotic settings also up for the award in this category - huge names in the crime world. I wish them the best of luck too, of course. But if "The Girl Who Wouldn't Die" takes the award, it will be nothing short of a minor miracle, since I normally can't even win an argument.

Happy voting for your favourite contender, BritCrime lovelies!

Marnie Riches