Books

It’s been 12 years since George RR Martin last published a novel in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. Since then the Game of Thrones TV show has come and gone, with its creators having had to rely on plot outlines for the last two books that are …

Teun Toebes with care home resident and ‘housemate’ Murielle (Image: Marijke Krekels) In Teun Toebes’s small bedroom is a pub-style peanut dispenser, coffee machine, and well-stocked bar. In the wide corridor outside are fake plants and the sound of blaring televisions. It could be any well-appointed student digs, but for …

Crime writer M W Craven (Image: PA) When Mike Craven sent the draft of his novel The Botanist to a scientist friend, the response wasn’t quite what he had anticipated. “He got straight back and told me I could face ten years in prison for revealing the recipe for ricin,” …

Barrister-turned-broadcaster Rob Rinder thinks his friend Benedict Cumberbatch would be the ideal choice to star in a TV adaptation of his debut thriller The Trial. He recalls how Cumberbatch, who he met at Manchester University, deterred him from pursuing a career in acting. “I’d been to the National Youth Theatre …

Cillian Murphy and Jamie Bell appeared in Retreat, the pandemic-based film Janice Hallett co-wrote (Image: REX/Shutterstock) Having co-written a chilling horror film about survivors of a mysterious airborne disease trapped on a remote Scottish island, author Janice Hallett was struck by an uncanny sense of deja-vu a decade later as …

Atom Bomb God Father Oppenheimer, (Image: Getty) Amid a phalanx of eager reporters and the popping of photographers’ flash bulbs, Cillian Murphy strides purposefully towards the camera, lean and handsome in a dark suit, cigarette in hand. Only this time his familiar 1920s style tweed flat cap has been replaced …

1,000 horsemen storming at full gallop across the battlefield (Image: Getty) The last major German offensive on the Western Front was launched 105 years ago this weekend. The Second Battle of the Marne proved a decisive turning point in the First World War – though not for the reasons the …

Lesley Pearse and her new puppy, Barney, in Devon (Image: Lesley Pearse) My ruby King Charles Cavalier Stan had been my companion and dearest friend for 12 years. Without him, I think I would have gone loopy during lockdown. Alongside my writing, I was renovating a one-bedroom ground floor apartment …

Edward ‘Eddie’ Egan, pictured by his Hurricane in 1940 (Image: RAF ASSOCATION KENLEY & CATERHAM) When Grace Egan opened her door to a Post Office telegram boy on September 18, 1940, she knew it would be bad news about her son, Sergeant Pilot Edward “Eddie” Egan. And she knew it …

As a police hostage and crisis negotiator John Sutherland saved dozens of lives during his 25-year career — but he is still haunted by the one negotiation he could not resolve. The former senior Metropolitan Police officer, who has used his experiences to write a thriller series starring police negotiator …