My latest whodunnit, Death on the Press Trip is now out with Bloodhound. This story is less of a traditional whodunnit than the previous ones, with a plot structure loosely based on one of my favourite TV series, The White Lotus. The opening scene is an English funeral, during which we discover that one of the journalists on a press trip round South America never made it home. We then bounce back two months to the first meeting of the group, at Heathrow, excited about the upcoming trip to Rio, Iguacu, the Atacama desert, Santiago and Chile's beautiful Torres del Paine National Park. So which one of them is going to die - and why? 

Having been on many press trips around the world in my days as a travel writer, I had always wanted to write about these intense experiences, where a small group of disparate journalists get to know each other very well over a period of a few days, often in very beautiful and high-end surroundings. The very luxury of the surroundings often feeds into the ongoing group dynamic, as the participants feel variously excited, spoilt, guilty, confessional, debauched etc. Suffice it to say that all these aspects feed in to this story, which you can find here, as ebook or paperback and soon, too, an audiobook read by Rory Bremner.

Rory has also read the other five in my developing collection and done a great job, as you'd expect from such a talented mimic and comedian. It's bizarre, listening to your own work performed by someone else. Every plus and minus of the story is laid bare and you are glad that you did after all work hard to make sure the final edit was as tight as possible. 

The others are available individually or as a  Kindle 'boxed set', which is a very cheap way to buy them.  There are four in the Francis Meadowes series, and one other standalone, Ghosted, which tells the story of a wealthy architect who wakes up at his own funeral, only to realise that he is supposed to have died by suicide, which was absolutely not the case. So the ghost of the victim becomes the detective, visiting his family and work colleagues in an attempt to find out how and why he was murdered. 

The Francis Meadowes series begins with The Festival Murders, set at the annual literary festival in the charming little English town of Mold-on-Wold, begins with the shocking death of a prominent literary critic. Which of the many talented writers thronging the town could possibly be responsible for such a heinous crime – or could the murderer be closer to home? The second, Cruising to Murder, takes my biracial crime writer turned detective Francis Meadowes onto a luxury cruise off West Africa, where trouble begins when a delightful widow is found dead in bed in her cabin, shortly after an onshore visit to Togo. The third, Murder Your Darlings, takes place at a writing and painting retreat in Tuscany, which begins when a snobbish self-published memoirist meets a nasty end in a sauna.  In the fourth, Murder on Tour, Francis goes on his first paid adventure, when he is hired to look into the mysterious death of a roadie on the European tour of popstar JonniK. As some readers may know, I documented the European tour of Robbie Williams in the book Somebody Someday. And it may well be that some of the material that failed to make that authorised account finds its way into this one. 

 Here are some press reviews:

THE FESTIVAL MURDERS

‘a marvellous set of unsavoury suspects ...  good, nasty fun with a ring of truth.’      MAIL ON SUNDAY (‘THRILLER OF THE WEEK’)

 ‘raunchy goings-on at fictional festival Mold-onWold ... a rollicking read’     EVENING STANDARD

‘a wicked send-up of literary festivals ... a crime novel with a cute concept’   INDEPENDENT

‘A very engaging literary romp’  SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

‘an old-fashioned murder mystery with ...neatly disguised clues ... and a satisfyingly unexpected culprit’       LITERARY REVIEW

 ‘ quite the year for thinly disguised literary romans-à-clef, with Mark McCrum’s novel causing gossip in literary circles’       INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY  

CHOSEN FOR INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY’S ‘ALTERNATIVE BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST’

CRUISING TO MURDER

‘An intriguing, gentle mystery ... With the inevitable eclectic mix of characters - none of whom would be out of place in an Agatha Christie tale - it has a charm and wit that the mistress of crime herself might admire’    DAILY MAIL

‘A beautifully judged homage to the golden-age detective novel - and an enjoyable travelogue to boot’     MAIL ON SUNDAY

“Entertaining . . . [a] riotous abundance of local color and exuberant characters”    PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

‘McCrum captures the claustrophobia and subtle tensions of the enforced socialising between very rich (and not always very pleasant) passengers brilliantly ...The twists and turns of his plotting will satisfy the most exacting aficionado of this genre and the denouement is enjoyably unexpected’    EROTIC REVIEW

‘A likeable and smart series lead. A good choice for traditional mystery fans’    BOOKLIST

‘Traditionalists will love this book’     LITERARY REVIEW

MURDER YOUR DARLINGS

‘The beautiful Umbrian countryside is wonderfully realised in this latest cosy-crime novel from former travel writer McCrum’   MAIL ON SUNDAY  ‘Books of the Year’

‘A neat twist on the classic English-country-house formula’   KIRKUS REVIEWS (U.S)

‘For anyone who enjoys a murder story with neither gore nor realism, Murder Your Darlings will offer much diversion’    LITERARY REVIEW    ‘Books of the Year’

 ‘Those who prefer a traditional whodunnit, in which a limited pool of suspects is gradually eliminated until only the least likely remains feasible, will savour this third instalment in a piquant amateur sleuth series.’    MORNING STAR

‘I like McCrum’s gentle but none the less intriguing novels. They’re old fashioned in the nicest possible way, and with nostalgia very popular are such a delightful read… Bravo!’    FROST MAGAZINE