January 5th, 2010 by admin.
First and foremost, let me wish a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010 to you all, and offer my thanks to everyone who’s bought and read my books during the last year - your support is always appreciated. Secondly, I offer a reprimand to myself, as a quick check before I wrote this revealed it was September when I last updated this blog. And it was only just becoming autumn - now we in the north of England are immersed in one of the coldest winters I can remember, with snow thick on the ground, night-time temperatures diving into negative numbers and the British transport system well and truly ground to a halt. (Yes, I appreciate those of you where real winters are common would find our conditions laughably mild….).
After a seasonally snowy start to the festive season and indulgence in the charming holiday traditions still upheld here, my son and I spent Christmas in Kent, fitting in visits to the O2 arena for the festive market there and to a pantomime at the theatre in London’s Greenwich (Mother Goose - probably one of the most entertaining pantomimes I’ve seen, and I have seen a good few pantomimes - love ‘em!). Since we got back to Derbyshire, the winter weather has really bitten hard, and I’ve barely left the village. This enforced ‘imprisonment’ has had two effects: one, a daily dose of cabin fever as I glare at the undriveable roads and resign myself to another day ’snowed in’; and two, a remarkable increase in word production on Book 5 in the series which is moving things along very nicely indeed (I can hear my agent cheering from here).
So it’s an ill wind, even if it’s an icy one. It’s likely to be a week or two yet before this little British winter lets up; who knows what mysteries for Hermes I might have conjured up by then? In the meantime, I have a couple of dates already in the 2010 diary for trips out and about. I’m very pleased to be travelling to Barcelona at the beginning of February as part of the city’s Black Novel week, and I’m also looking forward to Bristol Crimefest in May.
The snow will have melted by then, surely…?
September 27th, 2009 by admin.
I can’t believe September has almost been and gone, but the leaves falling in the wood and the distinct nip in the morning air tell me it must be so. If I’m honest, my disbelief is rooted, in large part, in my dismay at my failure - in my own eyes - to have achieved much of anything this month, creatively speaking (let’s hope neither my agent nor my publisher are reading this…).
And yet it has been an interesting month. I was very honoured to be invited to speak at a Lord Mayor’s reception at Sheffield Town Hall, where I met the wonderfully committed team who put together the city’s annual Off the Shelf literary festival. I met a lovely bunch of people at Uppermill library near Oldham, and gave a reading at my most striking venue yet, beautiful Oakham castle. As we head into October, I’ve got a pretty full calendar of events lined up, so do check the events page; if I’m in your part of the world, it would be lovely to meet you.
I’ve put the first few words on paper for book 5 (no title as yet), but have got slightly sidetracked with a short story I’m working on. It’s been a while since I’ve done any short fiction, and I’m enjoying the mental challenge of conveying mood, setting and characters in a very limited number of words. The other ‘task’ (it’s hardly work…) I’m very happy to be engaged in is reading Chris Ewan’s new book, ‘The Good Thief’s Guide to Las Vegas’. If you haven’t read any of Chris’s books, I recommend them to you - witty, quirky and very, very pacy, all are first-class entertainment from first page to last.
I’m very pleased to report that ‘The Lady of Sorrows’ has had the stamp of approval from Helen, my lovely editor at Bloomsbury, who says the Lady is my best book yet. There’s no wonder I think she’s lovely, is there? But whilst there’ll be no resting on laurels, I can’t help wondering if my slow pace this month reflects the fact that the Deadly Sin I’ve chosen for book 5 is Sloth…
August 24th, 2009 by admin.
It’s a long time since I wrote my blog, but my excuse is a long absence in Greece, where it was, of course, hot. Here in the temperate climate of the UK - and especially the northern counties - it’s easy to forget how hot that hot is. Before my departure, my elderly neighbours were complaining how they couldn’t sleep in the heat of the English summer. The average night-time temperature was 11c, with a daytime maximum of 19c…
Greece was, as always, wonderful - the sea so blue and perfect for swimming and snorkelling, the kafenions shaded and the drinks served extra cold, the food fresh and imaginative. But there are two things I spend more of my Greek time on than anything else - people-watching, and suffering from boat-envy.
The Greeks - especially in the island villages - can be quirky people. They do things differently there, and they are allowed to do things differently because their lives are not constrained by absurd Health & Safety regulations. Amongst the more interesting sights I saw (all in the notebook, of course) were two men struggling to carry a brick wall and an eighty-year-old man re-hanging shutters by straddling an upstairs windowsill (he drew a small crowd, but no-one offered to help: no-one wanted to spoil the show).
I fell in love - as usual - with several dozen boats, yachts, cruisers, call them what you will - not the flashy gin-palaces that fill the Mediterranean ports in summer, but the toys of the uber-wealthy, all quiet good taste and understated style - the boats where the crew spend the time the owner’s family is ashore busily giving the chrome and brass an extra polish. Those beautiful boats made me think of their owners’ lives, and how far removed they are from the concerns of us ordinary mortals. In fact, they gave me an idea for Book 5….
I’m pleased to say, by the way, that I finished book 4 - The Lady of Sorrows - two days before I went to Greece. I’ve had the thumbs-up from my agent, so it should be at the publishers for their approval this week. Fingers crossed….
July 3rd, 2009 by admin.
It isn’t often the thermometer hits the heady heights of the high twenties here in Derbyshire, but it’s managed it this week, and after a trip to the local supermarket earlier this week, my in-car reading (on a tarmac carpark, admittedly) was an impressive 33c. Everyone around me is complaining about the heat, and even our cat (a true gourmand, under normal circumstances) has stopped eating.
You’ll hear no complaints from me: this is summer weather as it should be - hot, sultry, calming (with apologies to everyone commuting - I appreciate heat is not calming in standing traffic on the M25, or on the tube). But it’s this kind of heat which moulds the Mediterranean temperament, because to rush about in it is madness; far better to take your time, have another cold drink in the shade, and get around to what you had to do manana, or avrio, as they say in Greece. My son and I are booked on a flight to the islands in a couple of weeks, and I’m really looking forward to a month there. Except the temperature’s been up as high as 40c. I’ll let you know if I find that kind of heat calming when I return.
Meantime, I’m pleased to let you know I’ve joined the Curzon Group - a group of crime writers whose aim - in a tongue in cheek way - is to wrest the crown of crime writing from American hands and bring it home to Britain. I’m a huge fan of American crime, and US writers have led the field for many years - think Michael Connelly, John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell. But there’s an untapped seam of home-grown talent emerging now that could really give those writers a run for their money. Britain produced some of the best-ever thriller authors - Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Conan Doyle. Can those days return? The Curzon Group believes they can. As a start, we’re doing an airport tour to promote British books as beach reads, starting at WH Smith’s East Midlands airport on 15th August. It’s a 5am start for me, so if you’re flying that day, a cup of heavy-duty caffeine from Costa Coffee would be much appreciated…
May 30th, 2009 by admin.
I have been in a Welsh state of mind for the past week or so. Firstly, I went to see the fabulous Rhydian at Sheffield City Hall. For those of you who don’t know, Rhydian won the X-Factor talent show on UK television last year. He is, I believe, a Welshman born and bred and it shows in his voice which is absolutely amazing. I know Rhydian is a bit like Marmite - love him or hate him (I am in the former camp, in case you hadn’t guessed) but anyone who has heard him sing must surely acknowledge that he is a world-class talent. That being so, I was slightly surprised that he was so absolutely unspoiled - he seemed slightly bemused by his own success, and very pleased that we had all turned out just to see him. And he had the good manners to thank the ladies who had made the sandwiches on his tour, and the bloke who had driven his bus. A star in the making, for sure.
Then on to Wales itself, for a week in the lovely town of Aberdovey. I was full of good intentions, and took my laptop with me to continue work on the second, almost readable draft of Book 4, which is as yet untitled. Needless to say I didn’t get far - I was easily distracted by the seashore which I have always found irresistible. We did some walking, and some fishing too, but only got a few mackerel; it’s too early in the season for bream apparently (either that or we were incompetent fisherpeople). Wales is somewhere I think I would quite like to live, if I were not happily settled in Derbyshire. It’s a country which has an old-fashioned feel to it (in a very good way) - there are proper shops and not too much traffic. And I am absolutely fascinated by the Welsh language, which seems to be unique and unpronounceable. Whoever thought of stringing so many consonants together without the benefit of vowels? I think I shall do some research into the origins of Welsh, maybe even try to learn a few words. If I succeed, I’ll put a sentence or two up here, just for the benefit of my Welsh readers (and Rhydian too, of course…).
May 18th, 2009 by admin.
I had the pleasure of visiting Crimefest in Bristol last week. It was my first crime conference so I was a little unsure what to expect, but what I found were scores of crime fans (a number had flown in specially from the US) and crime writers (both British and foreign) with a smattering of agents, editors and critics thrown in for good measure. The event - held at the very comfortable Marriott Royal - was extremely well organised, with two writer panels running concurrently almost every hour during the day and social events scheduled for the evenings. If you’ve never been to one of these events, I highly recommend it. It’s a great opportunity to meet writers in an informal setting (ie in the bar), and the panel discussions cover crime writing in all its many guises, from gory to cosy and all points in between.
There were a few familiar faces there, and it was great for me to talk informally to other crime writers about the business of writing and to catch up with some insider gossip (very interesting - too interesting, in fact, to repeat here - sorry…). I had a discussion over dinner with Simon Kernick, Paul Johnston, Declan Hughes and Stephen Booth over the optimum length for a book, and was surprised to discover mine are shorter than many. Should I make them longer? I’m happy to hear your views! Stephen is from this neck of the woods - or at least he sets his books here in the Peak District, and in fact he’s made a murder scene out of an ancient site only half a mile from our house…
Back at the grindstone, the second draft of book four is progressing well. The paperback of ‘The Taint of Midas’ was published last week (you can’t miss it in the bookshops - its cover’s a wonderful yellow) whilst ‘The Doctor of Thessaly’ comes out early in July. I’m still waiting for the Doctor to appear on Amazon, but if you’d like to pre-order, it’s available on Waterstone’s website, and Borders. Just don’t read the blurb too closely; whoever wrote it (not me!) seems unaware that Thessaly is not an island of my imagination, but a real part of Greece, similar to an English county. Don’t go looking for the town of Morfi on the map, though - it isn’t there…
April 13th, 2009 by admin.
Time flies, doesn’t it? I can’t believe it’s Easter already, and a quarter of 2009 is in the past! On the other hand I’m feeling slightly smug (which is a very dangerous way to feel, in this business) as I’m only a gnat’s whisker away from completing the first draft of Book 4 in the series. Don’t be fooled, as I am trying to fool myself - a first draft, for me, is a very distant cousin to what the finished product will be. It’s like an artist’s outline sketch of a finished painting - the basics are there, but there’s a lot of work to put in before it’s something you’d hang on your living room wall…
Meanwhile, I’ve had my proof copy of Book 3, The Doctor of Thessaly, which is out at the beginning of July. It’s lovely to see an almost-finished, professional-looking product - but it is definitely ‘no going back’ time now, no changes, no revisions, and I always find something I wish I’d written differently. But I hope you’ll enjoy the story anyway, regardless of imperfections - its theme is Envy, which I think is one of the darkest, nastiest sins.
I was disappointed not to attend Torquay’s new crime festival in the end. My son has had suspected glandular fever, and has been very unwell indeed, though he’s on the mend now. But I shall definitely be in Bristol in May - wouldn’t miss it for the world!
I celebrated my 50th birthday last week, and really made it count, as it’s the last birthday I plan on celebrating (I think I’ll start counting backwards now). One of the highlights was lunch at a new restaurant in Bradford - Zouk’s Tearoom - absolutely brilliant and well worth the trip. If you get the chance to go, don’t miss the mango cheesecake. And we’ve been spending some time with family this holiday, which always includes plenty of physical activity, thanks to my brother-in-law. For today, he’s conceived the idea of a nine-mile hike over Mam Tor, which - if you don’t know it - is one of the Peak District’s most scenic spots. Getting to the top involves a lung-burstingly steep gradient, but the views make it all worthwhile. Well, almost…
February 18th, 2009 by admin.
Hello Reader,
I’m proud to welcome you - at last - to my new website, and to my first-ever blog. I read somewhere this week that there are already tens of millions of bloggers here on the world-wide web, which made me wonder - briefly - about doing this. But there are tens of millions of books out there too, and I suspect that, in the same way all books eventually find themselves in the hands of the right readers, bloggers too reach their perfect audiences, given time, luck and a following wind.
Heavy snow and icy roads have kept me largely housebound for a large part of this month, which is no hardship as long as there’s wood for the fire and milk for cups of tea (of which I drink a heroic number whilst working). With no distractions, I whipped through my final, final read-through of the copy-edited manuscript of The Doctor of Thessaly (due out in July). It’s gone to the printers now, so if I want to make more changes, tough. Better not to look at it again - my inner perfectionist always finds something that’s not quite right. In a few weeks the proof copies will be out, and the first reader comments will be in. I’m very pleased with the Doctor - fingers crossed that readers like it too.
I’ve been working with Bloomsbury on an ‘out and about’ schedule for the first part of this year. So far I shall be in Torquay at the beginning of April - I’m doing a crime-writing workshop - and in Bristol in May. I’m very pleased to see Michael Connelly - one of my heroes! - will be in Bristol, though I didn’t manage to swing it to get on the same author panel as him. Well, not so far… Where there’s a will, there’s often a way. Failing that, I’ll join his book-signing queue…
