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National Crime Reading Month

Our Ambassadors

National Crime Reading Month’s Ambassadors are spread across the UK and Ireland and are available for press and events. They also recommend their favourite reads over at our blog.

All successful crime writers who are dedicated to spreading the word about this versatile and exciting genre, our Ambassadors include authors of police procedurals, psychological thrillers, domestic noir as well as classic detectives and historical crime and more.

If you’re a journalist or event organiser and would like to engage with your nearest Ambassador, get in touch with the CWA.


Steve Cavanagh

Steve Cavanagh is the author of the Eddie Flynn series and standalone novels. A consistent Sunday Times Bestseller, he has sold over a million copies in the UK alone, and his novels are international bestsellers in multiple territories. Most recently, his novel Thirteen spent eight months on the Spiegel Bestseller list, reaching #2. His novel Fifty Fifty was a Richard and Judy Book Club choice, and was selected for the BBC Between The Covers book club. He is a #1 Amazon bestseller, #1 Times Bestseller, and has won multiple awards. These include the CWA Gold Dagger, Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, the Prix de Polar, The Northern Ireland Arts Council ACES award, and the Dead Good Readers award. Nominated for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger multiple times, along with the Irish Crime Novel of the year, he has also been nominated for the Barry Award and features regularly on Waterstones, The Times, the Observer and the Guardian best books of the year lists.

Steve is married with two children and lives in Northern Ireland where he now writes full time.







Vaseem Khan

Vaseem Khan is the author of two award-winning crime series set in India, the Baby Ganesh Agency series set in modern Mumbai, and the Malabar House historical crime novels set in 1950s Bombay. His first book, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published 2015-2020, and is translated into 17 languages. In 2021, Midnight at Malabar House won the Crime Writers Association Historical Dagger. Vaseem was born in England, but spent a decade working in India. In 2023, Vaseem was elected the first non-white Chair of the 70-year-old UK Crime Writers Association.


Nadine Matheson

Nadine Matheson was born and lives in London and is a Criminal Solicitor. Nadine is also the winner of the City University Crime Writing Competition.

Her debut crime novel, the bestselling The Jigsaw Man has been translated into 15 languages and was loved by readers around the world. The Binding Room is Nadine’s second novel featuring DI Henley and the Serial Crime Unit. The third novel in the series, The Kill List, will be published in 2023.




LJ Ross

LJ Ross is an international bestselling author, whose books have sold over 7 million copies worldwide. Her debut, Holy Island, was released in 2015 and became an instant international bestseller. Since then, a further twenty of her novels have gone on to take the coveted #1 spot, some even before general release and whilst only available to ‘pre-order’. The Bookseller magazine has reported on Louise having topped the ‘Most Read’ and ‘Most Sold’ fiction charts, and she has garnered an army of loyal fans who love her atmospheric and addictive storytelling. Her eleventh novel, The Infirmary, is a prequel story to the DCI Ryan series and is available as a major Audible Originals audio-drama starring Tom Bateman, Kevin Whately, Bertie Carvel, Hermione Norris and Alun Armstrong.

The first novel in her Alexander Gregory Thrillers series, Impostor, was shortlisted in the British Book Awards 2020: Crime & Thriller Book of the Year. The audiobook of Impostor, narrated by Hugh Dancy, was also selected as a finalist in the New York Festivals Radio Awards, Best Fiction Audiobook of the Year Category. In May 2021, Louise was shortlisted for the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association Dagger in the Library.

Louise was born in Northumberland, England. She studied undergraduate and postgraduate Law at King’s College, University of London and then abroad in Paris and Florence. She spent much of her working life in London, where she was a lawyer for a number of years until taking the decision to change career and pursue her dream to write. Now, she writes full time and lives with her husband and son in Northumberland and Edinburgh.


Robin Stevens

Robin Stevens is the bestselling and award-winning author of the Murder Most Unladylike series. She first discovered murder mystery as a genre when she was 12, and she’s been a fan ever since. Born in California, she grew up in the UK and now lives in Oxford with her family. Her latest book is The Ministry of Unladylike Activity.


Sarah Ward

Sarah Ward is a crime novelist who writes gothic historical thrillers as Rhiannon Ward. The Birthday Girl, the first book in her Welsh based series, was published in April 2023 and described in the FT as ‘channelling Christie-esque tropes’. Her tenth book Death Rites begins a new series set in New England and will be published in October.  She has also written Doctor Who audio dramas. Sarah is a former Vice-Chair of the Crime Writers Association and is now on the committee of Crime Cymru, the Welsh crime writing collective. She is the National Crime Reading Month ambassador for Wales.


Roz Watkins

Roz Watkins is the author of the acclaimed DI Meg Dalton series and the standalone thriller, The Red House. Her first book, The Devil’s Dice, was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger award, and was The Times Crime Book of the Month. The Red House was one of The Times 100 best books of summer 2023. Roz is also the Royal Literary Fund Fellow for Exeter and Falmouth Universities.


Victoria Selman

Victoria Selman is the Sunday Times and Amazon #1 bestselling author of five thrillers including Truly Darkly Deeply which was a Richard & Judy pick in 2023 as well as being longlisted for the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year Award and shortlisted for the Fingerprint Thriller of the Year Award with film rights sold to See Saw Films. Victoria has been shortlisted for two CWA Daggers and is the recipient of the Full Stop Award. She is also the host of popular discussion show, On The Sofa with Victoria on Crime Time FM

Her latest novel is the critically acclaimed, All The Little Liars– a true crime inspired story of twisted friendship that asks: How far would you go to belong?


Penny Batchelor

Penny is the Amazon bestselling author of two psychological thrillers My Perfect Sister (which was longlisted for The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize in 2020) and Her New Best Friend published by Embla Books. Her third thriller The Reunion Party (link to geni.us/TheReunionParty  ) is published on 25th June and she is currently writing a fourth.  As well as being a novelist she is also a freelance journalist and regular columnist for The Bookseller. Penny is a co-founder and judge of the ADCI Literary Prize and, with the Professional Writing Academy, sponsors course bursaries for disabled writers.


TM Logan

TM Logan was a national newspaper journalist before turning to novel-writing full time. His books have sold more than two million copies in the UK and are published in translation in 22 countries around the world.

His latest thriller, THE DREAM HOME, was published in February 2024 and became his fifth Sunday Times bestseller.

THE HOLIDAY was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and subsequently made into a four-part TV drama starring Jill Halfpenny. His novel THE CATCH was also adapted for TV starring BAFTA-winner Jason Watkins and is currently on Netflix UK. Tim’s debut LIES was one of Amazon UK’s biggest ebooks of 2017 and was followed by his second standalone, 29 SECONDS in 2018. TRUST ME, THE CURFEW and THE MOTHER followed and were all Sunday Times bestsellers.

Tim lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife and two children. You can find him at www.tmlogan.com.


Dorothy Koomson

Dorothy Koomson is an award-winning, global bestselling author of 18 novels, known as the ‘Queen of the Big Reveal’. Her emotional thrillers have connected with readers all over the world; her books are regularly Sunday Times bestsellers, have sold over 2.5 million copies in the UK alone and have been translated into more than 30 languages. Dorothy featured on the 2021 Powerlist as one of the most influential Black people in Britain, appeared in GQ Style as a Black British trailblazer, and was a judge for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction. 2023 marks Dorothy’s 20th anniversary as a published author. A special anniversary edition of her debut novel, The Cupid Effect, will be published by Headline in July 2023. Her new book, My Other Husband, is published in paperback on 13th April 2023.


Professor Jim Fraser

Professor Jim Fraser has spent his career as a forensic scientist and ‘cold case’ reviewer. He has been involved in many high-profile investigations including; the murders of Rachel Nickell, Damilola Taylor, Lin and Megan Russell, the serial child killer Robert Black, and the death of Gareth Williams, the GCHQ codebreaker. As a member of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, he has also reviewed many notable cases including the Lockerbie bombing.

Jim is an experienced media commentator and has appeared in many TV documentary programmes including, Killer at the Crime Scene (Channel 5) and David Wilson’s Crime Files (BBC Scotland).

Books


Andrea Mara

Andrea Mara is a Number One Sunday Times, Irish Times, and Kindle bestselling author, who has been shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year at the An Post Book Awards for four of her books.

Her most recent novel, No One Saw A Thing, was a Number One bestseller in the UK, in Ireland and on Kindle, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick, and has sold over 100,000 copies, spending five months in the Irish Top Ten.

Her novel All Her Fault was Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month, a top ten bestseller in the UK and Ireland, and a Kindle Top 5 bestseller. It has been optioned for TV and commissioned to go into production by US streamer Peacock.

Hide And Seek charted in the Irish Times bestseller list for five weeks and was shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year in 2022.

Her next novel, Someone In The Attic, will be published this year – in the UK and Ireland on June 6th and in the US on August 20th.

She lives in Dublin, Ireland, with her husband and three children.


Emma Christie

Emma Christie was born and raised in a book-filled house in Cumnock, an Ayrshire coal-mining town.

After quitting her law degree to study literature and medieval history at Aberdeen University, she spent five years working as a news reporter with one of the UK’s top-selling regional daily newspapers, The Press and Journal. She’s also written for The Independent and The Herald Scotland.

Her debut novel THE SILENT DAUGHTER was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2021, shortlisted for the Scottish Crime Debut of the Year 2021 and longlisted for the Crime Writers Association John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award 2021.

Following the release of her second novel FIND HER FIRST in January 2022 Emma was invited to appear at two of Scotland’s most prestigious book festivals, Aye Write and Bloody Scotland. This year she’s on the bill at Theakston’s Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. Her third novel IN HER SHADOW will be published in January 2024

Emma usually lives in Barcelona but from April 2023 will spend six months living and working in her Ford Transit campervan alongside her girlfriend Mari, a yoga teacher. Starting in Spain they’ll travel Europe and the Balkans but will interrupt the trip to appear at Theakstons Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate.

Find her online at www.emmachristiewriter.com or across social media @theemmachristie

For me the best thing about crime fiction is its diversity. Whether you want to step into the shoes of a detective or love historical novels, crime fiction’s the place. If you want a classic whodunnit, a book that makes you laugh or a slice of biting social commentary, you can find it in crime fiction. It spans every genre. There really is something for every taste.