Ink and Daggers

It is always nice to get back from holiday and find that a book has arrived in the post and it’s even nicer when the book contains one of your own short stories. I’ve written elsewhere on my website about how much I enjoy the short story form. It is possible be playful and experimental in a way that would be difficult to sustain in a full length novel. The story in this anthology is an example of that. ‘Accounting for Murder’ is the most technically daring story that I have ever written. It is told in the form of receipts and other financial documents. It was quite a challenge and I wondered if I could pull it off. In fact it has attracted more favourable attention than any other story I have written. It was published in a CWA anthology and was short-listed for the CWA Short Story Dagger. And I am delighted that it is about to be published again in Ink and Daggers: The Best of the Crime Writers’ Association Short Story Awards. edited by the doyen of crime fiction anthologies, Maxim Jakubowski. It is a treat to find myself rubbing shoulders with the likes of Neil Gaiman, Peter Robinson, Ann Cleeves and Christopher Fowler and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the stories by writers at the height of their game. Ink and Daggers is published on 19th September.