Our 2026 Literary Contributors
Suspense. Intrigue. Mystery & Mayhem.
Our 2027 writers will be announced soon. Subscribe Here for updates.
Our amazing roster of Crime Writers - See Who Wrote it!
Graham Bartlett
S.J. Bennett
Mark Billingham
Sam Blake
Amanda Carr
Sophie Cleverly
Victoria Dowd
Martin Edwards
Mark Ellis
Thomas Enger
Frank Gardner
Harriet Gilbert
Sarah Govett
Johana Gustawsson
Sophie Hannah
Antony Johnston
Vaseem Khan
Sarah McCartney
Tom Mead
Barbara Nadel
Bernard O'Keefe
Biba Pearce
Nick Waring
Hilary Whitehall
Trevor Wood
GRAHAM BARTLETT
Best selling crime writer Graham Bartlett was once Brighton and Hove’s Chief Superintendent, senior homicide detective and firearms commander.
Advisor to many luminaries of crime novels, his own books featuring Superintendent Jo Howe reek of authenticity as they take us to the dark places of crime committed and crimes solved.
S.J. BENNETT
S.J.Bennett’s enchanting , award winning mysteries give us an amateur detective with a mind as sharp as a bacon cutter within the head that wears the crown.
The ‘Queen’ series of novels features Elizabeth 11 solving crimes with a Holmesian brilliance. They’re fun, they’re witty and brilliantly constructed, tantalising mysteries.
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MARK BILLINGHAM
Mark Billingham is the multi-award winning creator of the iconic homicide detective Tom Thorne. From his first outing in the chilling ‘Sleepy Head’, Thorne has battled in books and on the screen, some of the nastiest, most vicious protagonists imaginable.
It is Mark’s genius that the scars Thorne suffers by battling the inhuman have created a character that is complex, brilliant and profoundly human.
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Sam Blake
Vanessa O'Loughlin writes as Sam Blake. Her debut novel, Little Bones, launched the Cat Connolly trilogy and was a runaway bestseller, while all her psychological thrillers have been top ten bestsellers with four reaching Number One.
She has been shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year three times.
Sam also writes equally successful YA crime and was Winner of the International Education Services Teen & YA Novel of the Year 2024.
Sam is the current Chair of the Society of Authors.
SOPHIE CLEVERLY
Sophie Cleverly is the author of the spine-tingling ‘Scarlet and Ivy and Violet Veil’ mysteries.
Tales to thrill with every danger imaginable in creepy boarding schools with terrifying and freaky teachers, poisonpen letters and accidents that are definitely not accidents. Hold on to your hats!
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VICTORIA DOWD
Winner of the people’s prize for fiction 2021.
Victoria Dowd reckons that her Yorkshire roots explain her passion for the dark and the gothic. She employs that passion to good effect, bringing the Golden Age of Crime slap up to date with her witty, waspish, twisty novels.
Winner of the People’s Prize for Fiction with ‘The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder’ - the first of the brilliant Smart Woman’s mystery series – she is also our patron. How smart are we to have got her?
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MARTIN EDWARDS
Martin Edwards is renowned for his Rachel Savernake series and his Lake District Cold Case Mysteries. Unsurprisingly, they have him brought him honours – 3 Daggers from the Crime Writers association, including the highest award, the Diamond Dagger, and two Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America.
He is a hugely respected historian of the genre, acknowledged for the outstanding scholarship that won him four lifetime achievement awards. His latest novel is the deliciously named ‘Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife’. The New York Times opined that crime fiction is blessed to have him.
So are we.
MARK ELLIS
Mark Ellis is the creator of the fascinating, complex detective Frank Merlin.
Mark’s best selling novels brilliantly evoke WW2 London as he gives us a detective beset by criminal gangs, traitors and spies as dangerous to his beloved city as the bombs that rain down on her.
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THOMAS ENGER
Whether collaborating with Gustawsson or Horst or writing his stand alone Henning Juul series, Enger give us dark and compelling narratives that have all the icy chill of the Scandinavian air.
Critics describe his work as punchy, tense, intense, gripping, thrilling, and superbly compelling. And that’s every page!
FRANK GARDNER
Frank Gardner is the BBC’s Security Correspondent and bestselling author of the Luke Carlton thriller series.
Using his experience as a journalist covering events from wars in Afghanistan to piracy off the Somali coast, Frank recreates high- risk stakes and political tension with chilling realism in his books.
Harriet Gilbert
From 1983 to 1988 Harriet was literary editor of the New Statesman and is a contributor to Time Out, The Guardian and The Washington Post.
She is the author of six novels and presents ‘World Book Club’ on BBC World Service radio. She is a brilliant interviewer - a regular to Barnes Bookfest. We’re lucky to have her.
JOHANA GUSTAWSSON
The Queen of Noir is author of the prize winning Roy and Castells series and the chilling Lindigo series.
Her books are nightmares in prose, gripping and unputdownable whether we are following Emily Roy and writer Alex Castells in their unrelenting hunt for the worst of humanity or enduring agonising twists upon twists in the Lindigo series based on true stories.
SOPHIE HANNAH
Sophie is a Sunday Times, New York Times and Amazon Kindle No. 1 bestselling author, and the writer of the new Hercule Poirot mysteries, at the request of Agatha Christie’s family and estate.
Her books are published in 51 countries and have more than five million copies worldwide. She won the UK National Book Awards Crime Novel of the Year prize in 2013, and the Dagger in the Library Award in 2023. Her murder mystery musical, ‘The Mystery of Mr E’ is available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV now. Sophie is the founder and coach at Dream Author Coaching.
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ANTONY JOHNSTON
Antony Johnston is the celebrated creator of a massive body of work ranging across spy thrillers, video games, graphic novels and crime novels- Charlize Theron’s film ‘Atomic Blonde’ is based on one of his novels.
Antony is winner of the Barker Book award for ‘The Dog Sitter Detective’, and acclaimed for ‘Can you solve the murder?’ – a puzzle novel for adults. His work thrills, fascinates and intrigues. Irresistible!
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VASEEM KHAN
Vaseem Khan is the multi award winning author of the enchanting, Baby Ganesh Agency series set in today’s Mumbai and the Malabar House series set in 1950’s Bombay.
Revel in the rich cultural details as Mombai’s retired Inspector Chopra and Bombay’s first female detective Inspector Wadia battle crime in a rapidly changing India. Vaseem is also putting James Bond’s Q front and centre in a ‘Quantum of Menace’. Novels to die for!
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TOM MEAD
Tom Mead is a UK author specialising in locked-room mysteries.
Tom Mead is a Derbyshire mystery writer and aficionado of Golden Age Crime Fiction.
His debut novel, DEATH AND THE CONJUROR, was an international bestseller, nominated for several awards, and named one of the best mysteries of the year by The Guardian and Publishers Weekly.
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BARBARA NADEL
Is the creator of fascinating and complex characters from the charismatic Inspector Ikman, battling evil in the dangerous world of modern Istanbul, to the deeply troubled undertaker Francis Hancock battling injustice and his own war induced demons, to London based private detectives Hakim and Arnold - the most intriguing partnership in modern crime writing.
Her understanidng of her protagonists and their worlds create and an atmosphere that is rich and compelling.'
BERNARD O'KEEFFE
Bernard O’Keeffe’s protagonist is the complex, erudite Inspector Garibaldi. The setting for his novels is leafy Barnes in all its village charm and it makes a powerful contrast to the horror of murder.
Some call these novels ‘cosy crime’ but there’s nothing cosy about lives cut short - bodies lying in the village pond or stabbed in the ancient graveyard.
As Garibaldi uncovers the darkest of human acts in his village patch, Bernard shows us the best and worst of all possible world.
HILARY WHITEHALL
‘Actor best known for ‘Fierce Creatures’ ‘The Good Guys’, ‘London’s Burning’ and famously as Carol Thatcher in ‘Dunrulin’.
Now she is the voice of reason as one half of ‘The Wittering Whitehalls’ podcast with husband Michael.
TREVOR WOOD
Trevor Wood may describe himself as a ‘relatively successful playwright’ – but he is much more than a relatively successful crime writer.
The first of his Jimmy Mullen ‘Street’ series won him the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger award series and the Crimefest Specsavers Debut Crime Novel of the Year. His new series gives us DCI Jack Parker, a tough, brilliant copper facing a fight he can never win.
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AMANDA CARR
Amanda Carr is a fragrance writer and founder of the wonderfully successful Barnes Fragrance Fair.
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SARAH MCCARTNEY
Sarah McCartney is a brilliant, independent perfumer and founder of 4160 Tuesdays.
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NICK WARING
Nick Waring is an award winning actor who has worked extensively in theatre, television and film.
He is best known for Queen of the Desert, The Asylum, Where Hands Touch and Royal Wives at War.
SARAH GOVETT
Sarah is author of the brilliant, psychological thriller 'Believe' described as one of the best novels of 2025
She has also authored several bestselling YA novels, including The Territory and We Go On Forever and co-wrote the screenplay for the feature film, T.I.M., which was the number one film on Netflix upon release.
Believe is her debut thriller. We can only hope for more.
BIBA PEARCE
Biba is the bestselling author of multiple series including DCI Rob Miller, Shrap Nelson and Kenzie Gilmore, as well as the Dalton Savage and Avril Dahl series co-authored with L.T. Ryan.
Her work has been recognized by the Feathered Quill and the CWA Debut Dagger awards, and The Marlow Murders was named Best Crime Fiction Book at the 2024 Indie Excellence Book Awards.