The Crime Readers’ Association
The CRA website was set up by the Crime Writers Association. It’s free to subscribe and is full of information about crime writers, new novels, and there are often giveaways, too. I’m delighted that I’ve been asked to be the featured author for June. This involves writing four blog posts and the first one – […]
The Golden Age of Murder
Or, to give it its full title, The Golden Age of Murder: The Mystery of the Writers Who Invented the Modern Detective Story, by Martin Edwards. I bought it at Crimefest and starting reading it right away. I finished it in four days even though it is 435 pages long and the days at the convention were packed. […]
Great panel of crime-writers at Crimefest 2015
One of the pleasures of Crimefest – surely one of the friendliest conventions on the circuit and almost certainly the best organised – is making new friends. This was the first time I had met the writers on the panel that I moderated. They are from left to right: Amanda Jennings, me, Stav Sherez, Linda Regan, and David […]
It’s got to stop!
At least for a while. Maybe I’ll take June off. Go cold turkey. Only thirty days in June, so it might not be too bad. Or maybe wait until August when I’ll be in France for some of the time, so (mostly) out of the reach of temptation. Or should I perhaps just STOP RIGHT NOW. […]
The pleasure of not teaching
There are some marvellous exhibitions in London at the moment: Impressionism at the National Gallery, John Singer Sargent at the National Portrait Gallery and the one I saw last Saturday: Sonia Delaunay at Tate Modern. Once I’d have been making notes for the course I used to teach on European painting from 1840 to 1920. I would […]
Ten books set on the Home Front
Time for another list! We had such fun last time that Moira at Clothesinbooks.com and I have got together again, this time to share our ten favourite books set on the Home Front. Mine are all set in WWII. Here goes . . . First up is Joyce Dennys’s Henrietta’s War (1983 – but written during the […]
Martin Edwards and The Golden Age of Murder
One of the unexpected pleasures of becoming a crime writer has been the friendship of other crime writers. I first met Martin Edwards through the Crime Writers Association and we found we shared an interest in golden age crime fiction – though Martin knows far, far more than I do. We’ve had many absorbing conversations over the […]
State of Emergency
‘One evening in 1969, [Ted Heath] the Leader of the Opposition invited five of Britain’s leading trade unionists, among them Vic Feather and Jack Jones, to dinner at his Albany flat . . . to his guests’ delight Heath was persuaded to show off his new piano, and even played a couple of short pieces. […]
Inventing Impressionism
This was a great idea for an exhibition: Impressionist paintings connected with the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who was so important in promoting the work of Monet, Renoir, Manet, Degas, Pissarro and Sisley. Everything here was either sold by him, owned by him or in one of the influential exhibitions that he organised in Paris, London or […]