Dial ‘M’ for Murder – the telephone in twentieth century fiction
On 12 May 2014 by AdminHaving just published a novel – Line of Sight (Arbuthnot Books, 2014) – in which the telephone plays a key role, I’ve been thinking about the significance of this particular piece of technology, invented (or at least patented) in 1876, by Alexander Graham Bell, but only in common domestic use for around a hundred years.
Writing a different book every time – why I can’t seem to stick with a ‘brand’….
On 30 April 2014 by Admin‘All your books are different,’ said a friend who’d just read the latest one. He meant it as a compliment, but I’m afraid that – given the way that the book world is these days – it’s a serious disadvantage. A cursory glance at the ‘three for two’ tables in any bookshop, or at the
The Discreet Charm of Murder – why the ‘country house’ whodunnit retains its power to enthrall…
On 15 April 2014 by AdminIn his review (Guardian 12.04.14) of a 1946 novel by Gladys Mitchell (Here Comes a Chopper, published by Vintage’s new crime fiction imprint), Nicholas Lezard considers the enduring – and, to some readers, baffling – appeal of the English country house murder mystery. Alluding to Chandler’s celebrated distinction, in The Simple Art of Murder,
The Curse of The Dark Tower – or Why You Should Avoid Literary Allusion and Choose a Descriptive Title
On 28 January 2014 by AdminA recent article on the BBC website brought it all back: what I’ve come to think of as ‘the curse of the Dark Tower’. The allusion is to my fourth novel of that name, which was published by Arbuthnot Books in 2010. The Dark Tower deals with that particularly bloody episode in British colonial history known
Getting the past in your sights – why I’ve turned to detective fiction
On 11 December 2013 by AdminIt’s nine months since I wrote this blog – a long enough period of gestation for any work of fiction… which indeed it has proved to be. After a year in which I moved to a different city, and started a new job, I finished my novel, Line of Sight, and delivered it to its
Revisiting your life in fiction
On 13 March 2012 by AdminIt’s twenty years since my first novel, A Mild Suicide, was published – years which have seen the most radical changes in publishing since the invention of the printing press. The rise – and fall – of the bookstore chains, the decline of mainstream publishing, the massive expansion of digital media, and the invention of
The irresistible charm of the English murder
On 20 December 2011 by Admin‘Extraordinary how potent cheap music is,’ says Amanda in Private Lives. The same might be said of fiction – at least of a certain sort of ‘cheap’ fiction, variously known as the thriller, the murder mystery, the detective story, and the whodunit. To this genre – or rather to a particular sub-genre, disparagingly referred to
The Great Silence
On 11 November 2011 by AdminToday, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of the twenty-first century, people across the globe fell silent, in commemoration of the dead of two world wars. It’s a custom that, in the decades since it was instigated, has become almost a commonplace of public mourning.
Having a fabulous time
On 20 September 2011 by AdminOne of the joys of publishing with an independent online publisher is being able to re-publish one’s out of print work – hitherto doomed to a half-life in the ‘used’ section of the Amazon store, or to second-hand bookshops -– themselves fast disappearing. It’s a wonderfully liberating feeling, to know that one’s characters are no
Living in the past – the joys of historical research
On 18 July 2011 by AdminI’ve been living in the past a lot lately. In 1927, to be precise – which is when the novel I’m currently writing is set. Every day, I get on the Jubilee Line and travel back in time, to an era when there were no computers, no mobile phones, no televisions and not very many