Tim Willocks News Today

This year the Quais du Polar in Lyon, the largest European festival of crime novels and one of the largest in the world, in celebrating its 20th season, was marked by the intrusion into the spine of the novels by the real-world problems and catastrophes going on around the festival.

Once every so often you encounter an author who, while not yet a household name, is certainly destined for greatness. Prodigious literary talent James Vella-Bardon is one such writer who, with his gripping  debut novel The Sheriff’s Catch—an underdog adventure set during the late 16th century—has shown that he is well on the way to becoming the new king of historical fiction.