After a bumpy stop-start planning phase, I am nearly ready to write Danny3. The notes are extensive. I have a working title. The step treatment is done. Pencils are sharpened. Typing fingers, all two of them, are beginning to twitch. But starting the sequel to The Wreck Of The Margherita and Death Squad is a [...]
IT'S been like Cluedo this week as scandal rages through the world of crime writing. Well-known authors have been exposed for setting up fake identities on blogs, Amazon and Twitter - "sock puppet" accounts - to write glowing reviews of their books and trash rivals. Writer Jeremy Duns unravelled the story on Twitter and it [...]
In a global media age we are up to our necks in issues and information. But when you boil it down, few things really matter. One is beer. The Campaign For Real Ale is backing an epetition to force a debate in Parliament on beer duty which adds five per cent to the price of [...]
RIP Tony Nicklinson. His was a tragic story, body frozen by a stroke, mind alert but imprisoned. As life expectancy increases and medical treatment improves there will be many more people living with crippling illnesses that would have killed them a few decades ago. There are those who would advocate life at any price but [...]
Love the warm weather but the flies are a pest. Or they were until Saturday. Now we have a whizzy fly swat shaped like a tennis racket and powered by batteries. Instead of squishing your target against a hard surface all you do is tap it with the bat. There’s a crack like a rifle [...]
Bumped into Alice Cooper in a lift on Tuesday. Chatted about the Olympics and the weather. He’s a really nice guy. Another thing I noticed - no scrum of minders, no firewall of PR fixers. He was with just two people and strolled off down the road for a coffee at Starbucks. That’s style. The [...]
OK, I admit it. I was wrong. The London Olympics were quite the opposite of the predicted disaster. In the great British tradition of griping, I thought all sorts of things would go wrong and we’d finish up with a very expensive cock-up. To be fair, the signs were there - the eye-watering cost, ticket [...]
I CAN’T get enough of St Pancras Station. The fantastic redesign has given its magnificent Victorian architecture a new 21st century life. Trains are almost an added bonus. The place is a cathedral, concert hall, art gallery, shopping centre and even has a proper pub of the sort John Betjeman would recognise. And the Booking [...]
Caught Jona Lewie on an old Top Of The Pops in the early hours. I remember him because I used to live in Palmers green and was very easy to find. BOOK WARS: efrictions surfaced at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. Some argue the traditional model - agents and publishers [...]
One element vital to thriller and travel writing is research. Get it wrong and crime fans have no cliff to hang from. Travel enthusiasts might walk off one. I love maps. They are part work of art, part scientific analysis. They help you plan walks and outings for travellers or chases that lead your heroes [...]