Confessions of a Book Collector

Crime writer Chris McDonald joins Confessions of a Book Collector to discuss his new private investigator novel, The Wrong Man, and why readers remember how a book made them feel long after they've forgotten the plot.
Chris shares how a chance conversation on a Manchester football pitch convinced him that ordinary people could become authors, why he secretly wrote his first novel without telling anyone, and how an image of a body on an ice rink stayed in his head for a decade before becoming a book.
The conversation explores the enduring appeal of fictional detectives, the influence of American noir, building a crime festival from scratch with Stockport Noir, and how music shaped both his writing and his reading life.

Bestselling author Sarah Vaughan joins David Headley on Confessions of a Book Collector to discuss power, privilege, politics, morally difficult characters and the emotional truths hidden beneath public lives.

From her years as a political journalist during the Blair era to the explosive success of Anatomy of a Scandal and its Netflix adaptation, Sarah reflects on the strange timing that turned the novel into a cultural phenomenon.

David and Sarah also explore why “nice” characters rarely make compelling fiction, the books that shaped her as a reader and writer and why she’s fascinated by characters under pressure.

In this episode, David reflects on one of the greatest pleasures of reading: discovering a remarkable book before the rest of the world catches up.
David also shares some of the upcoming and recently published novels he’s most excited about, including literary fiction, crime, fantasy and speculative fiction that readers will soon be pressing into each other’s hands with the words: “You have to read this.”
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Go behind the scenes of this year’s Capital Crime Festival as David sits down with Festival Director Lizzie Curle to uncover what it really takes to create London’s biggest celebration of crime and thriller fiction.
From programming standout events and welcoming bestselling authors to building the unique atmosphere readers return for year after year, Lizzie shares an insider’s look at the festival, a few exclusives, and the events she’s most excited for this June. Plus, why the crime and thriller community continues to be one of the most passionate and welcoming worlds in books.

We’re joined by Hallie Rubenhold, bestselling author behind The Five and Story of a Murder, and a writer who has reshaped how we think about some of history’s most infamous crimes. Known for shifting the focus away from sensationalised killers and back onto the lives of overlooked victims, Hallie explores what happens when we start questioning the stories we’ve always accepted as truth.
We talk about the danger of “campfire retellings” in true crime, why history is often built on incomplete or biased perspectives, and how context can completely transform a narrative. Hallie shares what drove her to reclaim the stories of the women linked to Jack the Ripper, why she avoids focusing on the killer entirely, and how her latest work continues to challenge the way crime — and truth — are constructed.