Welcome to Murder In Merton!

Very excited to announce the launch of Murder In Merton: Crime Writing Events across the London Borough of Merton. I’ve been running author events with the Friends of West Barnes Library in Motspur Park for a few years, and now, I’m branching out to other parts of the borough. I’ll be partnering with Merton Libraries and Wimbledon Bookfest to make this happen. Thank you to Fiona Razvi from Wimbledon Bookfest and Silvia Leal de Oliveira at Merton Libraries.

June is Crime Reading Month with the CWA and the Reading Agency. It’s therefore a great time to start Murder In Merton with three events. Check out crimereading.com to see what’s going on in your local area for June.

Saturday 10th June 2-4pm at West Barnes Library – An Authors’ Fair

With Sarah Clarke, Lucy Martin, Biba Pearce, M L Rose, Amer Anwar & Alex Khan. There will be books available to buy and the opportunity to chat with the authors.

2:15pm Author introductions

3:00pm Amer Anwar will talk about his writing career.

Refreshments will be provided for a small cost. And there’ll be a competition to enter. No booking or entry fee – just turn up and stay as long as you like!

Tuesday 20th June – Crime in the Library at Wimbledon Library – 7-8.15pm.

I’ll be interviewing Saima Mir (The Khan), Olivia Kiernan (The End Of Us) and Robert Gold (Eleven Liars) about their latest novels. Entry is free but you must book. To do so click here.

Saturday 24th June – Introduction to Crime Writing at Wimbledon Library 11.30-1.30

I’ll be running a beginner’s workshop along with Biba Pearce. If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at crime writing or maybe you’ve been writing for a while and would like some feedback, then here’s your chance. £20 for the session but there are some limited free tickets for unwaged/low-income customers. To fund out more, click here.

There’ll be more from Murder In Merton throughout the year and some of you may have spotted a separate page for it here on my blog. I’ll keep it updated with future events. Hope to see you at any of the events above!

Book review – #TheLastPassenger by @willrdean @HodderBooks

Happy publication day to Will Dean for The Last Passenger! Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for an early read. Before I give you my thoughts, here’s the blurb.

The Blurb

A luxury cruise liner, abandoned with no crew, steaming into the mid-Atlantic.
And you are the only passenger left on board.

Caz Ripley, a cafe owner from a small, ordinary town, boards the RMS Atlantica with her boyfriend Pete and a thousand fellow passengers destined for New York.
The next morning, she wakes to discover that everyone else on board has disappeared.
And that’s just the beginning. Caz must prepare for a crossing that will be anything but plain sailing …

My Review

I’m going to start this review by referring back to Bad Apples, one of Will Dean’s Tuva Moodyson’s books. In that story, we got to see what happens when Will lets his imagination run riot. He’s done something similar in The Last Passenger.

Caz Ripley is being whisked away by her partner, Pete, on a once-in-a-lifetime trip – crossing the Atlantic Ocean from the UK to New York. But after the first night on the ocean liner, Caz wakes up to find Pete gone, along with everyone else. Caz is the last passenger on board.

What follows is confusing and terrifying but Will Dean knows how much to give away and when to do so. It certainly wasn’t a calming read before bedtime! I don’t want to give away any of the plot though because it’s so important that readers find this out for themselves. What I will say though is, in the same vein of Bad Apples, Will Dean has written a controlled descent into chaos and madness. It’s deliciously clever, terrifically tense and has an ending that I hate him for. But this really is Will Dean at his absolute best.

You can buy The Last Passenger here.

The Author

Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands, living in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying law at the LSE, and working many varied jobs in London, he settled in rural Sweden with his wife. He built a wooden house in a boggy forest clearing and it’s from this base that he compulsively reads and writes.