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 landing in Algeciras from the Tangier ferry and were stopped by Franco’s Guardia Civil.
The man in the weird waxed hat smiled and asked me to open my rucksack. I did so. Then he grabbed the bottom, tipped it up and spilled the entire contents across the bench and the floor, smiling all the time.
Things it Spain don’t seem to have changed.
My fourth crime thriller, Rock Hard, is set in Gibraltar which is currently subject to ridiculous Spanish border controls. Thousands, including the elderly and infirm, are left queuing outdoors in all weathers. It’s bordering on madness.
Spain claims the reason is a clampdown on smuggling, particular cheap cigarettes. But while shoppers and travellers are held at the border, smugglers are climbing fences or using boats. There is a problem but there are better ways of dealing with it.
Madrid regards Gibraltar as an anachronism and an embarrassment to national pride, despite the fact they have two outposts, Ceuta and Melilla, across the Straits on the Moroccan coast in Africa.
The West has intervened in countries all over the world to support peoples’ democratic right to live their life as they wish.
The Gibraltarians want to remain British. There is nothing to discuss.
***
Rock Hard has won some encouraging praise. I had an email that said: “The Danny books are genuinely so much better than others by better known authors.”
A newspaper review said: “Out of his Brighton comfort zone, in Gibraltar, he’s soon up to his eyeballs in devilry. Hard men force him to test his friendship while trust issues are explored. Danny is pushed close to breaking point…Explosive to the end.”
And an Amazon review concluded: “Leaves you guessing to the very end. If you like Jack Reacher you’ll love this British version.”
I look forward to more comment. It’s the way a writer learns.
Meanwhile, Rock Hard is riding the rollercoaster that is the Amazon ebook and paperback charts. This week it hit #5 in the Kobo Mystery & Suspense-International chart.
So, looking good but it’s no surprise I can’t relax.
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