Writing is a solitary activity. In a crowd, I’m the guy on the edge, watching. So exposing myself to strangers who have read my book is exciting and scary in equal measure.
The Facebook Twit Lits Book Club picked The Wreck Of The Margherita – my first crime-thriller in the Danny Lancaster series – as their book of the month for May.
Then they proposed a Q&A.
The questions were detailed and probing, covering the many positive women characters, pregnancy, dementia, battle injuries, and Peter James’s Roy Grace novels.
That’s good because it makes me focus on the decisions I made while writing. The reader’s opinion is the only verdict worth having.
It was fun and it taught me things. See what you think:
Playing catch-up with my bookshelf, I really enjoyed Peter Guttridge’s City Of Dreadful Night, the first of his Brighton crime trilogy.
The dark and twisting plot links a botched firearms raid to the gruesome true-life trunk murder of a woman whose body was found in left luggage at the station in 1934.
The story is lean and fast and supports the observation that, “Brighton looks like a town that is helping the police with their enquiries.”
… and finally, whether you’re a monarchist or not, you have to admire someone who can bring as much dedication to a job for 60 years as Elizabeth II has. It’s a rare quality. Three cheers for Her Majesty. Hip Hip!!!