We are excited to announce Val McDermid's Top 5 CrimeBits, which will be featured in CrimeBits 2: 100 Opening Gambits for Great Thrillers & Linked Mystery Puzzles, alongside many other brilliant authors who are listed below.
CrimeBits 2 is out this August - Make sure to get your copy to discover what Val McDermid thinks makes the best opening to a crime novel!
WINNER - Zoë Green, Lemon Yellow
Zoë Green is a Scottish writer and teacher who lives in Berlin. She read English at Oxford and holds an MA in Creative Writing from UEA. This autumn she starts her PhD at Freie Universität Berlin. Her poetry has been published by The London Magazine, Poetry Wales, New Writing Scotland, The Scottish Poetry Library, Scottish PEN, Under the Radar, Southword, Poetry Salzburg, The Interpreter’s House and berlin lit.
The story Lemon Yellow happened when Mulholland Drive, Taschen’s Homes for Our Times 3, and Ricky Lee Jones’s voice in 'Little Fluffy Clouds' all bumped up against each other inside her head.
SHORTLIST
David Potter, Love is Blind
David’s background is in journalism and he spent 20 years as a newspaper editor before leaving the industry to start his own PR and media consultancy. He took early retirement so he could focus instead on his love of creative writing and recently gained a master’s degree in crime and thriller writing from Cambridge University, where his tutor was crime writer Elly Griffiths. He is also a member of the Society of Authors.
Joyce Schmid, Without Representation
Joyce Schmid is a grandmother, psychotherapist, and aspiring poet whose work has appeared in The Hudson Review, New Ohio Review, Literary Imagination, Bridport Prize anthology 2023, and other journals and anthologies. A poetry chapbook, Natural Science was published in 2025 by Glass Lyre Press. She lives in Palo Alto, California, with her husband.
Diarmaid Condon, Willie Cavanagh Gets Dumped On
Born in Tipperary in 1966, Diarmaid worked an inherited farm until 1995, before studying IT Management as a mature student. He pivoted to property sales and consultancy in 2000, and then on to property journalism for a decade, writing for several national and international titles. The 2020 lockdown offered an opportunity to explore a writing career. Diarmaid self-published his first novel, I Will Follow, in 2023 and has almost concluded his second book, For the Record.
Sarah Hill Wheeler, Brierley Hill
Sarah Hill Wheeler writes all kinds of stuff. Erstwhile lawyer, perpetual student, duck whisperer and keeper of very spoilt hens. Currently in the final stages of an MA in Creative Writing at MMU and working on an alternative crime novel. Wiltshire born and bred, but happy anywhere with a good book and double espresso. Website: www.sarahhillwheeler.co.uk
ALL SELECTED CRIMEBIT AUTHORS
Muhibo Abdalla
John Adamcik
Craig Aitchison
Cailey Barker
Paul A. Barra
Beau Barton
Richard Burke
Michael Byrne
William Cairns
Lucia Cascioli
Esperanza Cintron
Paul Clayton
Diarmaid Condon
Emma Clarke Conway
Liz Correal
John Corrigan
Catherine Mary Darensbourg
David Darling
Jonathan Davies
Lauren Deborah
Lucy Edwards
Colin Evans
Liane Fazio
Michael Fleming
Sarah Fox
Jim Harris
Jennifer Harrison
Suzzanne Harwood
Rosemary Herbert
Nikki HoSang
Jenny Howard
Iqbal Hussain
Paul Jeffcutt
Anwen John
Charles Johnston
Pamela Jo Keeley
Maureen Keimig
Rupa Mahadevan
Anthony Martin
Neal Mason
Don McDermott
T A Morton
Spike Nesbit
Angela C Nurse
Randy O’Brien
Kenneth Payne
pine breaks
Zoë Green
Robert Plummer
David Potter
Lynda Potter
Callum Reid
Leslie Roberts
Joyce Schmid
Cara Scott-Morrison
G M Scott
Timothy Sever
Adam J. Shardlow
TK Sheffield
Iain Smith
Henry Stanton
Daniel Stewart
Uzomah Ugwu
Rod Usher
Richard Valanga
Agustina Villamide
Brad Walker
Joanne Watkinson
Jamie West
Sarah Hill Wheeler
David Williams
Judith Williams
D.M. Woolston