Murder in under 140 characters

Posted by Hannah Hargrave in Book News, Competitions

Tweet a crime and you could win two tickets to Eoin Colfer and Mark Billingham’s event at Hay festival plus much, much more!

To celebrate the release of Eoin Colfer’s Plugged and Mark Billingham’s From the Dead in paperback, Headline Publishing Group and Little, Brown Book Group have teamed up with Hay Festival to offer a money can’t buy prize for crime fiction fans.

We challenge you to tweet a crime novel or film in less than 140 characters using the hashtag #tweetacrime. For example:

A book:

‘A curse. A hellhound. Inheritance scandal. Murderer sucked down a foul and bottomless hole. Elementary, my dear Watson #tweetacrime’

Would be The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

A film:

‘Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Lust. Pride. Envy. Wrath. Head in a box. #tweetacrime’

Would be Seven.

The prize? As well as respect from your peers and eternal glory, Eoin and Mark will read out their two favourite (and winning) entries at their Hay festival event on Friday 3^rd June. There may even be hand gestures, silly voices and props. And you will be in the audience, as you will also win two tickets to their event. Hay festival have also very kindly donated 5 pairs of tickets for each winner to any events of your choosing (subject to availability).

And we will even throw in a signed copy of Plugged by Eoin Colfer and From the Dead by Mark Billingham for each winner.

Entries will be accepted from 12 noon onwards on Friday 15^th April, and the competition will close at 12 noon on Friday 13^th May. Entries without the #tweetacrime hashtag will not be counted. Terms and conditions apply – please see below.

Mark Billingham is one of the UK’s most acclaimed and popular crime writers. His series of London-based novels featuring D.I. Tom Thorne has twice won him the Theakston’s Crime Novel Of The Year Award, the Sherlock Award for Best Detective and been nominated for seven CWA Daggers. His standalone thriller In the Dark was chosen as one of the twelve best books of the year by the Times and his debut novel, Sleepyhead was chosen by the Sunday Times as one of the 100 books that had shaped the decade. Each of his novels has been a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller.

A television series based on the Thorne novels was screened in Autumn 2010, starring David Morrissey as Tom Thorne heading an all-star cast that included Natascha McEhlhone, Eddie Marsan and Aiden Gillan. The second series of Thorne is currently in production for Sky One and a series based on Mark’s standalone thriller In The Dark is in development with the BBC. Mark Billingham’s latest novel is From The Dead. The next in the series, Good As Dead will be published in August 2011. www.markbillingham.com www.tomthorne.com

Eoin Colfer grew up on the south-east coast of Ireland with his four brothers. After attending Dublin university he qualified as a primary school teacher. He and his wife spent four years working in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Italy before his first book Benny and Omar was published in 1998. The first Artemis Fowl novel appeared in 2001 and the series has since sold millions of copies. In 2009 he published And Another Thing…, the sixth instalment in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series started by Douglas Adams. He was commended by the Observer for pulling off the “near impossible” – remaining faithful to Adams’s yet introducing his “own brand of wit and logic confettis”.

In Plugged, his first crime thriller for adult readers, he pulls of the near impossible once again. Centring on the twisted universe of ex-professional soldier Dan McEvoy, Plugged will introduce a generation of new readers to the brilliance of Eoin Colfer. Praise for Plugged: “I loved the voice. I loved the dark streets. I love the story'” Harlan Coben.

Terms and Conditions – Murder in under 140 characters

1. This competition is for two winners, to each win two tickets to the Mark Billingham and Eoin Colfer event at Hay Festival, which takes place on Friday 3rd June at 5:15pm at the Oxfam Stage, Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye, Hereford. The winners will also receive a signed copy of Plugged by Eoin Colfer and From the Dead by Mark Billingham. The two winners will also receive 5 pairs of extra tickets to events of their choice (subject to availability) at the Hay Festival. Eoin and Mark will read out the two winning entries at their Hay festival event on Friday 3rd June.
2. The winners will be the entrants who the authors, Eoin Colfer and Mark Billingham, feel have created the best murder crime tweets, as per the rules above and which have been submitted in accordance with these terms and conditions.
3. The winners may see their entries posted on the Little, Brown and Headline websites and Twitter accounts, and possibly other websites and Twitter accounts.
4. The Judges’ decision is final.
5. There is no purchase necessary to enter this competition.
6. The competition opens at 12.00 noon BST on 15th April 2011 and closes at 12 noon BST on 13th May 2011. Any entries received outside these specified times and dates will not be eligible for entry into the competition.
7. The entries must contain original material created by the entrant and must not contain material which created by someone else or is defamatory, private or in infringement of any intellectual property rights.
8. The competition is open to UK residents only who are aged 16 or over except employees of Little, Brown Book Group, Headline and the Hay Festival, their families, or anyone professionally connected to the competition either themselves or through their families.
9. Only one entry per person allowed. Second or subsequent entries will be disqualified. Entries will not be accepted via agents, third parties or in bulk.
10. Little, Brown Book Group, Headline and the Hay Festival are not responsible for contacting or forwarding prizes to entrants who provide unclear or incomplete information or for entries lost, misdirected, delayed or destroyed.
11. Little, Brown Book Group, Headline and the Hay Festival reserve the right to alter the prizes or cancel the competition without notice.
12. Your email address may be shared with companies within the Hachette group of companies but will not be shared with other companies outside the group.
13. Little, Brown Book Group, Headline and the Hay Festival will only use the winners’ postal addresses, in compliance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and in accordance with our privacy policy.
14. By entering the competition each entrant agrees to be bound by these terms and conditions.
15. This competition is being organised by Headline, Little, Brown Book Group and the Hay Festival.

Headline Publishing Group

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Little, Brown Book Group

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London

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