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.