Crime fiction

My first crime novel, Seven Miles From Sydney, was published in 1987, when I was 29. I wrote it for the saddest of reasons. My good friend, the Australian screenwriter Miranda Downes, had been murdered two years earlier while jogging on a Queensland beach.

James Ellroy doesn't do technology, so the crime fiction writer and self-described "demon dog of American literature" is on the phone-a landline-from his apartment in downtown Denver. "I've never used a computer for anything," he says. "I don't have a cell phone. I don't know how to text message. I write my books by hand, and I write historical novels, and it all works."

In July 1992, Guido Brunetti arrived as a new protagonist on the mystery scene in Donna Leon's first novel, Death at La Fenice, which combined her love of opera with her gift for character and her deep appreciation of Venice. Kirkus ReviewsThis offers more than 400 pre-publication reviews of books published in America in 24 print issues a year. It also has an archive of more than 300,000 reviews dating back to 1933 - the most extensive single-source reviews database anywhere. A subscription costs $37.50 a month. www.kirkusreviews.com called it "deftly plotted and smoothly written," and the St.  Read more

The first ever mention of Sherlock Holmes came in A Study in Scarlet, published in Beeton's Christmas Annual of 1887. Dr Watson is looking for lodgings, and meets an old acquaintance who knows of someone he could share with, but does not recommend.  Read more

In 1981 Alex Wheatle served time in prison in London following the Brixton riots. His teenage life was turned around by another prisoner who suggested he should start reading the work of black writers - it was the creative spark for his own career as a novelist.  Read more