Elections are like new recipes, you get the idea but can’t be sure what you’ll end up with. So I was startled and delighted to come 93rd in bookseller WH Smith’s poll of top crime authors. I have tremendous faith in the Danny Lancaster stories but can’t really believe I deserve to be listed along [...]
Creating characters is great fun but it’s surprising how small details have a big effect. Usually when I’m walking around people just see the normal amiable me. When it’s chilly I wear a woolly hat and the changed reaction of strangers is dramatic. People are wary, give me a wider berth. It’s only a scrap [...]
Moments after Mum died the nurse bowed her head and mumbled a quiet prayer. I didn’t recognise the language and only knew her as Fatima. Mum was CofE but the religion didn’t matter. I had no words and will be forever grateful for whatever it is Fatima did. It was just an honest gesture, a [...]
Big companies present a smiley “we care” face but often it’s not much different from those mystery packages bought from a market stall. You find you didn’t get much for your money. I had problems with BT recently. When they sprang into action the service and result was excellent but that was after seven days [...]
One of the joys of travel writing is escaping the strangling hi-vis grip of health and safety. That doesn’t mean you take crazy risks but destination hosting comes in many forms, a lot of it backed by national pride and hospitality you would not want to offend. This can be heightened by old ideas of [...]
It’s amazing the surprises that rise from the soil as it churns with the seasons. Our old garden yielded a lot of lovely Victorian bottles including R Whites lemonade, mostly broken, alas. Probably the most unusual object was this pipe bowl, pictured. I found it again last week while having a clear-out. I asked around [...]
Dead is the way to get ahead. Dead, it seems, is the lifeblood of book promotion. For a writer, dead sells. I lose track of books I’ve read because dead is everywhere. A search of Amazon UK showed 46,919 results for ‘dead’ in book titles. But the word and the idea are to crime writers what [...]
I am juggling so many projects I feel like a one-man band – drum kit on my back, cymbals between my knees and a harmonica hovering in front of my mouth on a bent coat hanger. I’m working on two short history projects, a standalone thriller and the untitled Danny5. Pinning down the plot for [...]
I like a good Scotch egg but they are being highjacked by trendy cheffery. A good Scotch egg needs the right ratio of moist meat to egg with a light dusting of breadcrumbs. It’s all about proportion. They make a good snack or a light meal. Wrapped in foil, they’ll fit in a pocket. But [...]
I’VE had an email from a French anthropologist who lives in Croatia and collects helmets, as you do. He’s found an old press photo on eBay of my second cousin, Barbara Gubbins, who was on track to be the RAF’s first woman pilot when she was killed in an air crash in 1952, age 20. [...]