This morning, in a quiet moment after everyone else had left the house, I was gazing out of the window at the snow when I noticed a squirrel bound along the top of the fence. What struck me was that the squirrel’s springing movements fitted exactly into a pattern of tiny peaks and troughs of …
I’m currently researching my next novel, the third in the Silas Quinn series. In fact, I’m reaching the stage where I’m thinking about putting the history books to one side and doing some actual writing. The first thing I will have to do is turn the rather loose outline I submitted to my publisher into …
I was very interested in this stimulating piece by Christopher Fowler in the Independent because it touches on questions that I have grappled with in my own approach to writing crime fiction. This, in particular, struck me: “…publishers are keen to convince us that their latest murder mysteries are grittily realistic. They are not, but, …
Every now and then I check through the spam folder on this blog to see if it has mistakenly snagged any genuine comments. It’s a weirdly bittersweet experience. I am always disappointed because I never do find any genuine missed comments, but this is somehow compensated for by the spam comments themselves, which I find …
Author, wit and raconteur, Mike Ripley sent me a link to his latest Shots column, in which he was kind enough to mention my new book, The Mannequin House. In it he described my detective Silas Quinn as “a sort of Edwardian Dirty Harry”. Thanks Mike – you made my day! I’m also grateful to …