What's On My Bedside Table: Author Steve Cavanagh Tells Us What He's Reading

Steve Cavanagh, the bestselling author of the Eddie Flynn novels and standalone thrillers, shares what he is reading now …

In 2018, Steve Cavanagh’s book, The Liar, won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for crime novel of the year. In 2019, Thirteen won the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the year. All of his novels have either been nominated for, or have won, international awards. A former lawyer, he was born and raised in Belfast, where he still lives.

“I always have my eye out for great thrillers. Hunted by Abir Mukherjee, set in the US during the lead-up to a presidential election, is timely and then some. The story follows a group of extremist terrorists, and the families who have lost their children to indoctrination as they try to save their loved ones before the FBI finds them. It’s a race-against-time page-turner with a twist. Abir’s previous novels are historic mysteries, but they always speak to today’s problems and Hunted shows his skill at crafting an international thriller for our times.

“We have seen many different writers and film-makers take on the world of organised crime. In The Sopranos and The Godfather, we get to see the intersection of family, loyalty, betrayal and murder within the bubble of the crime world. Saima Mir’s Vengeance, the sequel to bestselling The Khan, takes all the best elements from those stories and does something very new, taking us into a rarely seen world in fiction. Jia Khan is the head of her crime family, but when old skeletons begin to fall out of closets and a body is found in her garden, she faces her greatest challenge yet.

“Martin Amis passed away recently, and I took the opportunity to revisit some of his journalism. While a book filled with reviews and literary opinions doesn’t sound like the most enjoyable read, rest assured you are in good hands. In The War On Cliché you’ll find insightful pieces on everything from Nabokov to Elmore Leonard. The wince-making review of Michael Crichton’s The Lost World is hilarious, eviscerating and somehow warm, human and worth the price of the book alone.”