Hello and welcome to white wine question time.

The podcast that asked its guests,

we thought-provoking questions over three glasses of wine.

And today, we're heading back down to the cellar for another episode from our archives.

And, well, today and across the course of November,

we thought, why not hold a mini literature festival of our own?

As we serve up some of our favourite authors to have featured on the podcast over the last, well, six and a half years.

And today, it's the Queen of Crime Writing, whose work has played out across, well, more than 40 books now,

multiple award-winning television dramas and Hollywood

films. Born and raised in Merseyside, Liverpool, she was one of four and her career

started out not as a writer but as an actress, with an education at Rada alongside Anthony

Hopkins, John Hurt and Ian McShane. Upon graduating, she landed some prominent roles with the RSC before pivoting away

from theatre to the small screen, making a name for herself on some of Britain's most

iconic television shows, be it the Zed Cars, the Sweeney, the professionals, even rent a ghost.

She became intrigued, though, by the production process of television drama and began writing treatment ideas for potential shows that were well very much her own.

Although most were rejected, one was praised as utterly brilliant. By 1983, her six-part series Widows premiered on television and became the highest rating series of the early 1980s.

Following the show's success,

she established herself as a highly sought-after crime writer

with women always at the heart of her stories.

And the release of her debut novel in 1987

quickly established her as a critically acclaimed best-selling author to boot,

paving the way for a series of hit books that followed in rapid succession.

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