John Dean's Blog – May 2023 Archive (4)

A month-long celebration of crime writing

National Crime Reading Month  begins tomorrow (June 1), including the Scottish launch in Edinburgh tomorrow night with guest speaker Professor Jim Fraser, a leading forensic scientist and author. You can find out more (including what's happening in your area) at…

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Added by John Dean on May 31, 2023 at 10:44 — No Comments

First talk in two and a half years

I am looking forward to appearing during the Crime Writers’ Association’s National Crime Reading Month (NCRM), run in conjunction with The Reading Agency, in June. I will be giving a talk about the inspiration for my novels, my first talk in two and a half years due to covid lockdowns etc.

During NCRM, authors will be taking part in events in…

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Added by John Dean on May 17, 2023 at 15:49 — No Comments

Book expected to go down a storm

The latest crime novel by Jackie Baldwin, who appeared at the recent Kirkcudbright Book Week, is due out on Thursday May 18.

Murder by the Seaside is published by Storm Publishing and begins when dawn breaks over the empty beaches of Portobello and Grace McKenna emerges from the icy water after her daily swim, her loyal dog Harvey by her side.…

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Added by John Dean on May 15, 2023 at 15:00 — No Comments

The art of plotting

I am ten thousand words into the latest DCI Jack Harris novel for The Book Folks, which means that plotting is very much at the forefront of my thinking.

To make a plot work, you need a strong story and in crime fiction that comes from watching characters overcome challenges – a murder, a mystery etc.

My initial plots tend to be very…

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Added by John Dean on May 12, 2023 at 16:32 — No Comments

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A welcome addition to the crime fiction canon

Book Review - Murder in the New Forest by Carol Cole (The Book Folks).It’s always a moment laden with anticipation when a new crime series emerges onto the scene and Carol Cole does not disappoint with Murder in the New Forest (The Book Folks).At the heart of the novel is a new central character, DI Callum MacLean, newly arrived in Hampshire from Glasgow and plunged into…See More
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Bestseller chart success

I am delighted that two of my crime fiction works are this morning in the top 100 Organised Crime Kindle charts on Amazon.The DCI John Blizzard box set containing the first seven novels in the series, (The Book Folks) for just 99p - now if that is not an outstanding offer, I do not know what is -  is at number 43 (it is already topping various anthology charts).My new…See More
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Grant award helps develop crime fiction programme

Organisers of the fourth annual Kirkcudbright Book Week have been awarded a £1,750 grant from the Robin Rigg Community Fund to help them develop the crime fiction component of the festival.Kirkcudbright Book Week is designed to celebrate the growing literary scene in and around the South West Scotland town and crime fiction has proved to be a popular genre with audiences…See More
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The way authors work

A few years ago, I ran a creative writing course and, at the beginning of one of the sessions, I asked my fifteen students how they worked.The result was fifteen different answers –one author wrote everything by hand then typed it onto their computer, another wrote it all in note form then linked the notes together, one did not edit anything until everything was…See More
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Knowing when to cast all caution to the wind

Writing is an art form which combines two skills which appear, at first glance, to have nothing on common – unrestrained creativity and well-controlled discipline.However, good writing is not possible without either of them. To explain, as I write the latest DCI Jack Harris crime novel, I am being disciplined and following the synopsis that I developed right from the…See More
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