Death among the camellias

Death among the camellias

Today I found a corpse at the bottom of my garden. You’d think that would be the biggest shock of my day. But you’d be wrong. They say you should write about what you know. And really, I suppose it ought to have inspired me. But… It wasn’t a human corpse, I hasten to...
Champion of champions

Champion of champions

I wrote a piece for the grand-daddy of all the crime fiction blogs The Rap Sheet (which currently receives up to 3,500 hits a day) looking back on this year’s literary awards season to calculate which of the crime fiction novels came out as the big winners. Spoiler...
What the Dickens

What the Dickens

The year 2020 marked the 150th anniversary of the death of Charles Dickens. The Dickens’ Fellowship and the Journalists’ Charity (which the great man helped found) chose a number of writers to create a new Dickens character for the 21st century to mark the occasion....
And the award goes to…

And the award goes to…

My first (and possibly last ever) nomination for a Crime Fiction Award. So exciting. Will Dean, who is nominated in the Best Independent Voice category for his brilliant Red Snow, tells me he’s grown used to turning up at awards ceremonies and not winning. I don’t...