Today on Celebrating Indie Publishing I am delighted to share my thoughts of a book that was published by No Exit Press in celebration of ten years of crime fiction at CrimeFest, the international crime fiction festival.
Description:
Twenty superb new crime stories have been commissioned specially to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Crimefest, described by The Guardian as ‘one of the fifty best festivals in the world’.
A star-studded international group of authors has come together in crime writing harmony to provide a killer cocktail for noir fans; salutary tales of gangster etiquette and pitfalls, clever takes on the locked-room genre, chilling wrong-footers from the deceptively peaceful suburbs, intriguing accounts of tables being turned on hapless private eyes, delicious slices of jet black nordic noir, culminating in a stunning example of bleak amorality from crime writing doyenne Maj Sjowall.
The contributors to Ten Year Stretch are: Bill Beverly, Simon Brett, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Jeffery Deaver, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Peter Guttridge, Sophie Hannah, John Harvey, Mick Herron, Donna Moore, Caro Ramsay, Ian Rankin, James Sallis, Zoe Sharp, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Maj Sjowall, Michael Stanley and Andrew Taylor.
The foreword is by international bestselling thriller writer Peter James. The editors are Martin Edwards, responsible for many award-winning anthologies, and Adrian Muller, CrimeFest co-founder.
All Royalties are donated to the RNIB Talking Books Library.
My Thoughts & Review:
I utterly love books like this, anthologies introduce readers to new writers and give them a glimpse into the minds of some very talented authors who can cast a literary spell on their audience in a few pages. This one in particular features some of the top crime fiction writers such as John Harvey, Ann Cleeves, Michael Stanley, Caro Ramsey and Ian Rankin to name but a few. I have to admit there are names on this list that I’ve heard of but not actually read anything by so it was a great delight to be caught up in their worlds and discover some thrilling reads that had me on the edge of my seat from the opening lines.
I was lucky enough to receive an early copy of Ten Year Stretch from the folks at No Exit Press and when it arrived I opted to flick through it at random, stopping entirely by chance at a story to read. I was soon immersed in a world of intrigue and held utterly captive by the writing of Kate Ellis in Crime Scene. This was such a thrilling and exciting story that had me guessing throughout. I loved that so much detail and atmosphere was was tightly woven into such a few pages, the writing crisp and taut, the characterisation absolutely on point.
Strangers in a Pub by Martin Edwards was another story that grabbed my attention, brilliantly plotted and fascinating reading! The thing I loved most about this story was the “what if” moment that it planted in my head … what if things had worked out differently in this story, how vastly different this story would have worked out, how things were down to chance. There’s just something so brilliant about a piece of writing that can get your mind spiraling and thinking along with the story.
Fans of Ian Rankin’s John Rebus will be delighted to know that Inside the Box features the much loved detective in his usual ill-tempered and sarcastic mode.
There are so many fantastic stories in here, some of them I would absolutely love to see expanded into a full length novel.
The skill it takes to write a short story awes me, to grab a reader so tightly with a story that lasts a few pages is amazing and it’s fair to say that each of the writers here have done just this.
What a spectacular way to celebrate a decade of crime fiction at CrimeFest, and even if you can’t make it to the festival this weekend in Bristol, don’t let that stop you picking up a copy of this excellent anthology!
You can buy a copy of Ten Year Stretch via:
Amazon UK
Wordery
Book Depository
No Exit Press (Publisher)
My thanks to Katherine at No Exit Press for my copy of Ten Year Stretch and for being part of Celebrating Indie Publishing!
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