Claire Askew

Claire Askew is the author of the Edinburgh-set DI Birch crime fiction series, published by Hodder & Stoughton. ALL THE HIDDEN TRUTHS (2018) won the 2016 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize as a work in progress, and the 2019 Bloody Scotland Crime Debut Prize. It was also shortlisted for the CWA John Creasy Debut Dagger and the CWA Gold Dagger in 2019. The follow-up, WHAT YOU PAY FOR (2019), was also shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger in 2020. COVER YOUR TRACKS, the third book in the series, was published in 2020, and book four, A MATTER OF TIME (2022) was longlisted for the 2022 McIlvanney Prize. Claire is also a poet, and the author of THIS CHANGES THINGS (2016) and HOW TO BURN A WOMAN (2021), both published by Bloodaxe Books. Her non fiction book NOVELISTA: ANYONE CAN WRITE A NOVEL - YES, EVEN YOU was published by John Murray in 2020. Claire has been a Jessie Kesson Fellow, a Hawthornden Fellow, and Writer in Residence at the University of Edinburgh.