Thursday 10 June 2010

Cath Staincliffe and The Kindest Thing


Cath Staincliffe has been a friend of mine since she joined the Northern Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association, not long after her first Sal Kilkenny novel, published by a small Mancunian press, achieved a great deal of acclaim. Later, when our mutual friend Margaret Murphy formed Murder Squad, she invited Cath and I to join, along with Ann Cleeves, Chaz Brenchley, John Baker and Stuart Pawson. That was ten years ago, and Murder Squad is still going strong.

In the intervening years, Cath has enjoyed a great deal of success. She is best known for Blue Murder, starring Caroline Quentin. This began life as a novel for which she could not find a publisher. But she sold the concept to television, and it was quickly turned into a highly successful cop show that ran for several series.

In the meantime, she continued to write Sal Kilkenny novels, as well as turning out several Blue Murder books, and a stand-alone book called Trio. We’ve done a good many events together over the years and they are always god fun. It was great to catch up with her at Crimefest and, along with Ann, we had a meal together before joining up with the rest of The Monkey Coalition for the pub quiz.

Now, she has signed up with a new publisher to bring out her latest novel, The Kindest Thing. I’ve just received a copy and I’m looking forward to it very much. And Cath will be contributing a guest blog here in July around the time of publication of the paperback edition.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I love Cath Staincliffe's Blue Murder series. They haven't cancelled it have they because I recent saw Caroline Quinton on another show. I just love the chemistry between the two MCs and the team.

Although, I really loved CQ in the series Jonathan Creek too.

CD

Anonymous said...

Martin - Thanks for the introduction. I wish Cath the very best with her writing and I look forward to her guest blog.

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

Looking forward to the guest post and looking up the series!

Nan said...

I adore Blue Murder, but sadly I don't think we get all the episodes over here via Netflix. They were called 'sets' or 'collections.' I also love Caroline Q. in Life Begins, but only series 1 is available. Maybe there weren't any more?

I want to look into the author now. Thanks for the post.

Martin Edwards said...

Thanks for these comments. Caroline Quentin is also terrific in the early Jonathan Creek shows. I haven't seen Life Begins, though, Nan, so I don't know if there was another series.