The big event for March was the Headline Crime Fiction Party at Browns Courtrooms on St. Martin’s Lane.

We met up with Peter Guttridge and Barry Forshaw for a quick beer and chat. We always compare notes on what’s out in the genre and all of us are under pressure this time of year with the onslaught of proofs / review copies for the busy summer reading season.

On arrival we toasted the arrival of Becky Fincham to Headline, whom we have known for many years now. It was good to see that Headline had grouped their writers together into a crime  thriller list because they have a very diverse group of talented authors. The party also introduced Headline’s newly revamped website magazine The Crime Files which is well worth a browse :-

Joining us was a veritable who’s who of the reviewing world: Mike Ripley, Peter Gutridge, Ayo Onatde, as well as Geoff Bradley of CADS Magazine, Bob Cornwall of CADS and Tangled Wed, Maxim Jakubowski, Barry Forshaw of Crimetime, The Crime Squad team, Jane Jakeman from The Independent, John Dugdale of The Guardian and The Sunday Times and Paul Blezzard of One Word Radio. We chatted to Mark Billingham, who is currently writing a standalone, Robert Ryan who was enthusiastic about his project DTZ with jazzman Guy Barker (look to camera left; ‘Nice’), Cathi Unsworth, Louise Penny, Lesley Horton.  We also met up with literary agents Teresa Chris and Broo Doherty.

The Headline team were on hand to talk about their crime and thriller list. Impressed as we were with their big name writers such as David Morrell [SCAVANGER], Martina Cole [CLOSE], James Patterson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Ryan; it was good that they are introducing new talent such as Louise Penny, Simon Spurrier, Patrick Quinlan, Brian Freeman, Scott Frost and the bestselling debut and Richard and Judy winner - Jed Rubenfeld. To see what is upcoming from Headline got to :-

For a flavour of the party click here for the slide show:

More information on Headline and their world of Crime and Thrillers is available from –

© 2007 A Karim and M Stotter