A (very) belated Happy New Year to everyone. It seems a long time since Christmas but I do hope everyone enjoyed the Festive Season – and maybe received some of my books in their Christmas stockings.
After New Year I got straight back to work and I’m now 50,000 into the first draft of Wesley Peterson’s 29th case. This time Neil is tackling the excavation of a crashed World War Two plane on Dartmoor and Wesley’s investigating the mysterious death of a ghost writer in a chocolate box village nearby. However, that’s all I can really say about it at the moment because I’m still working my way through the plot.
The beginning of this month saw the publication of my next three Joe Planagenet books (there are five in all) with gorgeous new covers. SEEKING THE DEAD and PLAYING WITH BONES have now been joined by KISSING THE DEMONS, WATCHING THE GHOSTS and WALKING BY NIGHT and now that this series is more widely available, I really hope more people will be able discover Joe’s spooky investigations in the ancient Northern city of Eborby (which closely resembles the lovely, historic and very haunted city of York). I’m so thrilled that I’ll soon be able to continue this series, although it might be a while (because of my publisher’s schedule) before the next one appears on the shelves.
As well as writing, I’ve been busy arranging events for 2024. A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to find that a brand new independent bookshop had opened not far from where I live. I noticed that a fellow writer, Anthony Johnson, was launching his new book there so I went along to support him and I’m please to say that his new series, about a dog-sitter detective is proving very popular. I’ve noticed recently that people are beginning to enjoy the, shall we say, cosier end of the crime fiction market. Perhaps this is because the world is so troubled at the moment that readers want to escape into a more comfortable and certain place when they settle down with a book (I believe this happened in the 1930s as well). I’ve always tried to keep my own books fairly ‘cosy and classic’ because this is the type of book I’ve always enjoyed reading. I’m so pleased to see that fashion in reading appears to be catching up with me!
The shop where Anthony spoke is called the Serenity Bookshop in Romiley near Stockport and I’m pleased to say that I’m doing an event there to celebrate the launch of THE KILLING PLACE paperback on April 11th (see my Events page for details). Do come along if you can make it. I’ll also be speaking at some libraries as well as attending Alibis in the Archives at Gladstones Library and CrimeFest in Bristol. Hope to meet some of you there.
Better get back to writing. Neil’s just dug up a skeleton that definitely shouldn’t be there!