Read Between The Waves

My current reading was Robert Galbraith’s The Hallmarked Man, which came highly recommended by a friend. It is an intriguing novel about private detective Cormoran Strike and his business partner, Robin Ellacott, who have been hired to prove the police wrong about the identification of a dismembered corpse. It is also over a thousand pages […]

‘In thought, word, and deed…’

Over the last week, I have been rereading Original Sin by PD James. The novel is set on the River Thames, with a body is pulled out of the water, so it is very good background reading for my work in progress.  PD James is a true great of crime writing, but maybe more in the style of a past […]

Title, Cover, Action…

Title… The other day I received an email update from LJ Ross saying her new book, The Lizard, from her Summer Suspense Mysteries, is available for pre-order. I’m sure, as crime readers, many of you will have enjoyed her DCI Ryan series, and it got me thinking about how these books influenced my writing career. […]

Thinking Inside The Box

‘The biggest mistake in creativity is waiting for a good idea…. Your best work doesn’t come first; it comes after you have cleared out everything else.’ David Epstein. As I continue to get book four, ‘Body in the Thames’, ready for publication, the above quote in an X post by Epstein caught my eye. To any […]

The Investigator

There are many examples in crime fiction where the main character isn’t a police officer. From Sherlock Holmes, a consultant detective, who worked mainly for his own mental stimulation and love of solving puzzles, to an amateur sleuth such as Miss Marple, whom I focused on in a previous newsletter. Nothing could be further from […]

This is no laughing matter…

‘Oh, yes, it is.’ On the surface, crime and comedy may not seem to be natural bedfellow genres. However, many people read for escapism from the real world, and a few laugh out loud moments are much appreciated. A large number of crime authors are very successful at including humour within their pages. It may […]

It’s A Classic

What is Classic Crime? I think it is considered to be set between the 1920s and 60s, be less graphic or dark than some modern crime, and focus on an intricate plot and the intellectual solving of the ‘whodunit’ puzzle. Authors of this genre include Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers, and, of course, Agatha […]