We don’t need another hero
I'm wary of heroes, modern ones anyway. The classical type are fine. They’re flawed, miserable, doomed creatures, nothing like the too-perfect marionettes you meet on occasion today. If you’re thinking about writing about one of the latter – you know the kind, great teeth, perfect hair, indefatigable,
Revising a manuscript – three strikes and you’re out
You’ve been wanting to finish that book for ages. Finally, you’ve just typed the last page. Yippee! Now what? Do you reveal your MS to the world, or at least an agent or editor you’d like to woo? No. By which I mean NO! The key to
The shaky start to my semi-illustrious career
Thirty years ago I was sitting in business class on a JAL flight from London to Tokyo, a glass of champagne in hand, a fat stack of three hundred or so A4 printout pages on the table in front of me. They amounted to the latest and, I’d decided,
Pick a name, any name
How do you decide what your characters in your story are called? Carefully, I hope. If your book works, that choice will live with you for years. My stories usually take place in foreign countries and often with local characters. My first published book, finished thirty years ago this year,
Now on Bluesky...
Like lots of other people I've grown disheartened by the state of Twitter (not calling it X). I've been there since 2007 and made lots of interesting contacts and read many fascinating posts. But... well, we all know what's happening. I won't
The story behind When The Germans Come
My latest tale may come as a bit of surprise to readers. It’s set not in Italy but a few miles from my home in England. In the town of Dover, a funny place that’s always sat at the edge of the country it seems to me, misunderstood,
When The Germans Come
Dover, 1940 and as well as awaiting the seemingly inevitable invasion by the Nazis, police inspector Louis Renard is also having to deal with murder and treachery amongst his fellow countrymen. Murky and frightening, this book will take you to the dark heart of a wartime Britain we rarely see.
Baptiste
The official prequel to the hit television show France, 1976. Baptiste is an intelligent but somewhat naive detective, sent to work in Clermiers, a town filled with corruption. A girl goes missing, presumed dead after bloody clothes are found close to an illicit party near an abandoned chateau. Baptiste believes
The Borgia Portrait
Book Two in the Venice Mysteries series A noble family, a legendary painting, a cursed palazzo. When Arnold Clover is recruited by Lizzie Hawker to help her look into her family inheritance, he cannot begin to guess the journey he is about to embark on. Lizzie's mother, an
The Medici Murders
Book One in the Venice Mysteries series Venice is a city full of secrets. For hundreds of years it has been the scene of scandal, intrigue and murderous rivalries. And it remains so today. 1548, Lorenzino de Medici, himself a murderer and a man few will miss, is assassinated by
