RIP Charlie Harris. We first met as teenage reporters on police calls at Southgate nick long before Leveson, when the Bill was a Force, not a Service. We’d sit down in an interview room with the desk sergeant and go through the crime books. Burglary, robbery, TDA. Names, addresses, facts. We’d walk out agreeing there [...]
SO, new year, new horizons. Santa was pretty generous with the whisky marmalade and remote-control helicopter. I didn't realise I’d been that good. After writing two books in 2013 I promised myself an extended break but the fingers are itching. The keyboard is calling. Sitting down to the first blank page of a new book [...]
I spent a lot of teenage holidays InterRailing around Europe with a friend. It was, and still is, a great way to travel. There’s no wham-bam of airport departures and arrivals. You watch the landscape, the people, the food, the culture, the weather gradually changing as it all trundles past your carriage window. Once we [...]
Millions upon millions of words have been written about the death of Nelson Mandela. I have nothing new to add. But I did visited Robben Island once on a travel trip to the great city of Cape Town. It is impossible to imagine what it was like to live in that stark cell, with its [...]
So, ROCK HARD is published and the promotion machine goes into high gear. I am really pleased with the first review which appeared in The Sun today. ROCK HARD has gone into the Amazon chart at 25,565 which is a promising start. I will be spending a tense weekend clutching my tablet. It’s a good [...]
So, it's twitching time again - my fourth Danny Lancaster crime thriller – ROCK HARD – is published. Here is the cover blurb: When Danny Lancaster gets a call from an old friend it looks like a chance to swap work and women worries in Brighton for a sunshine reunion. Danny hasn’t seen Pogo since [...]
A crime thriller is fiction but good research is vital to make it as realistic as possible. My fourth Danny Lancaster crime thriller - ROCK HARD – is partly set in Gibraltar and I have consulted with many of the locals including the two in the picture. ROCK HARD is published on Friday November 29 [...]
Watched a TV tribute to journalist Alan Whicker who died in July, age 87. As a kid I was riveted to his programmes which opened up unknown worlds before the birth of mass travel and social media. The man’s range was amazing, interviewing everyone from Jet Set celebs to dodgy street traders, dictators to wife [...]
In my office there’s a kitchen colender but it has never strained any vegetables. It is lined with tin foil to stop my ideas leaking out. It was a gift from my family in response to regular cries of “I thought of that ages ago” while watching crime or thrillers on TV. It’s a long-running [...]
FASCINATED to hear that JK Rowling has branched out into crime fiction with her wounded Afghan veteran turned private investigator Cormoran Strike. Most striking was news that THE CUCKOO’S CALLING rocketed 156,000% in the Amazon chart after Harry Potter creator Rowling admitted she was the author of the book which was published in April under [...]