Approaching The Launch Three years ago, I didn’t have an agent, or a novel – just an idea, a handful of characters, and 40,000 words on paper. Two years ago, I still didn’t have a complete first draft. One year ago, I’d signed with publishers in five countries, and...
My Top Ten Crime Novels There’s something peculiarly seasonal about crime fiction. It belongs to foggy autumnal evenings and to the darkness at the heart of a December night. So in the spirit of the best winter’s tales: close the curtains and light the lamps, draw up...
Buzzing At BEA Monday 9th May 2016 was the beginning of a week of firsts. My first time in Chicago. My first time in America for almost 20 years. The first time I’d met anyone from my American publisher. And my first BookExpo America. For anyone as unfamiliar with BEA...
Getting Published Writing with input from someone who’s as invested in your work as you are – my first professional reader was my UK agent – is a very different experience to writing alone. You feel a new sense of responsibility: not just to write well, but to write...
Becoming A Writer I became a writer when I was ten years old, the same year that I discovered Agatha Christie – and therefore crime fiction. On Christmas Day 1984, I unwrapped a notebook and a box of pens, and after lunch, while everyone else dozed chipolata-stuffed...
