A friend for life
Yesterday on a day trip from Sheffield to Oxford the train speed through Solihull. I can never see the sign go flashing past without being profoundly thankful that I am no longer working for the Inland Revenue. It’s many years since I caught the train from Birmingham to Solihull every day to my job at […]
The Life of Crime by Martin Edwards: a splendid read
This book is the result of a lifetime of reading a vast range of crime fiction. Martin Edwards claims that despite its length – running as it does (with exhaustive indexes) to 724 pages – The Life of Crime is a miracle of concision and that is hardly an exaggeration. Chronologically it spans the late […]
Martin Edwards The Crooked Shore
The Crooked Shore got off to a splendid start. I always enjoy a cold case enquiry. Twenty-one years ago, Ramona Smith left the bar in Bowness where she worked and was never seen again. No body was ever found, but there was plenty of circumstantiai evidence and it all pointed to Gerry Lace as her […]
Losing my reading mojo
A couple of evenings ago I found myself roaming around the house, looking for something to read. Nothing tempted me. I would pick up a book, flick through it, put it down again. It is not as if there isn’t plenty of choice for goodness sake. I have lots of books that I haven’t read […]
Days Are Where We Live
There are a few blogs that I always read and one of them is ‘Fragments of a Writer’s Life’, which can be found at SueHepworth.com. I’ll declare an interest – she is a good friend – but she is also one of the funniest people writing today. Sue has put together a selection of her […]
Happy Christmas
Season’s Greetings to all you readers, writers and bloggers out there and may you have a wonderful 2020! Our garden in the snow (not this year, I hasten to add!)
Be afraid …
Some years ago I was invited to submit a horror story for an anthology. The brief was that it must include some aspect of contemporary technology. I said doubtfully to my husband, ‘I’m not sure this is my thing.’ His reply was bracing: ‘You’re a writer, aren’t you? So write something!’ And I did. The […]
I’ve done it!
Last September I posted a photo of my desk all clean and tidy in preparation for beginning to write a novel. Well, I’ve done it and this is a photo of my desk last week just after I sent off the final draft to my editor. After I’d pressed send, I danced around the house. […]
The Case of the Missing Editor
Recently I was reading a novel by a well-known writer and came across the phrase ‘tyres hissing on the blacktop.’ That was fine, but then it was used again a few pages later. Similarly someone was described as ‘all squared away’ and soon after that someone else was also described as ‘all squared away.’ Am […]
The Long and the Short of it
Today I am delighted to be a guest on the splendid blog, http://Typem4murder.blogspot.co.uk. I’m written a post called The Long and the Short of It about the perfect length for a crime novel. I hope you’ll visit and explore some of the other offerings too.