ONE of Britain’s top crime writers will be a guest at the Bowness on Windermere book club in April.

Martin Edwards has written many crime novels and short stories including several set in the Lake District.

He’s a member of the Murder Squad collective of crime writers and was a long-serving chair of the Crime Writers’ Association.

He has won the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in UK crime writing. And in 2015 he was elected eighth President of the Detection Club; his predecessors include G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Agatha Christie.

Mr Edwards, who is also a solicitor, will give a talk on Wednesday, April 19, at the book club at the Burn How Garden House Hotel. The speaker at the inaugural event last month was the romantic novelist Suzanne Snow.

Hotel proprietor Michael Robinson said: “We are thrilled that Martin Edwards has accepted our invitation. His books are very popular indeed, especially in the Lakes, and we look forward to an insight into the murderous mind of a top crime writer.”

In the Lake District mysteries, the central characters are DCI Hannah Scarlett and historian Daniel Kind. Set around Ambleside and Coniston, the books include The Cipher Garden, The Arsenic Labyrinth and The Coffin Trail.

The book club will meet at the hotel on Wednesday, April 19, at 7pm.

It’s free, and there’s no requirement to read a particular book.

“The first event was a great success,” said Michael. “We have a whole series of meetings planned and hope that they will attract a regular following among locals, as well as visitors.”