I am looking forward to featuring in this event as part of Kirkcudbright Book Week:

Tuesday February 28 Free on-line event Talking Of Crime…2pm

A  Zoom event featuring crime writers from around Scotland, who will take readers on a tour of the country with each author explaining what effect the Scottish location of their books offers…

A quick reminder that the most recent DCI Jack Harris murder-mystery novel was The Girl In The Meadow, published by The Book Folks.

The novel sees Harris and his team embroiled in a challenging investigation after a skeleton is found during the refurbishment of a remote house on a windswept hill, having been there for three…

I am hard at work on the final stages of the latest DCI John Blizzard murder-mystery novel for my publisher The Book Folks and crucial to a process which has sometimes  been problematic is threads.

Threads run through every story and the trick for the writer is to pull them all together. In the case of this novel, I found myself running into…

The first novel written by Darlington author Eric Foster is due to be published on January 28, based on a fictional re-telling of the life of Ireland’s patron saint.

Inspired by a long-standing love of Ireland, Becoming St Patrick has been published by Troubador Publishing and is based on extensive research conducted by Eric over…

It’s well worth checking out an entertaining podcast interview with crime writer Ian Robinson ahead of his appearance at Kirkcudbright Book Week.

Having spent twenty-seven years in the Metropolitan Police, Ian is now a full-time writer. Six of his crime novels have been published and Rubicon is currently in development with the…

Ann Bloxwich, who will be appearing with myself and fellow crime writers Jackie Baldwin and Ian Robinson at Kirkcudbright Book Week, has announced that she has signed a deal with a new publisher.

Her contract with Red Dragon Publishing Ltd means that her debut crime novel What Goes Around will not be available until its relaunch with a new…

I am delighted to see that the debut crime novel by New Zealand author P M A Hayes has been published. You can check out my review of For Murder Press 3 at

https://pmahayes.blogspot.com

You can check out some of my thoughts on crime fiction as Chris Walker and Gerry Hassan interview me for the Kirkcudbright Book Week podcast at…

I will be appearing with three fellow crime writers at an event during Kirkcudbright Book Week 2023, which is making a welcome return after twice being cancelled due to the covid outbreak.

The week, which will take place between Monday February 27 and Saturday March 4, 2023, celebrates the developing literary scene in Kirkcudbright and the…

I am quite fortunate in that I don’t really suffer from writer’s block but the work on my latest DCI Blizzard novel came close as the creative process came to a grinding halt.

The first 16,000 words had actually gone well. I had an idea which intrigued me and a character whose secrets gave me plenty of scope to develop the narrative as I…

I have joined a writing group in the area of Dumfries and Galloway where I live and the most recent session was about flash fiction. I thought you might be interested in the thoughts I submitted following the session.

Flash fiction is fiction of extreme brevity. The standard, generally-accepted length of a flash fiction piece is 1,000 words or less. By contrast, a short-short measures 1,001 words to 2.500 words, and a traditional short story measures 2,501 to 7,500 words. A novelette…

I was with a group of writers the other day and we were discussing the question that we are most often asked at events. The most frequent one, you will not be surprised to hear, was ‘where do you get your ideas?’

It may not be the most original of questions but it does go to the heart of the creative process.

For my part, my ideas come…

As part of Kirkcudbright Book Week Society’s efforts to raise funds to underwrite some of the costs of the event in 2023, it has set up a Crowdfunding page for anyone who wishes to support it.

Treasurer John Dean said: “We raise all our own funds and we know that many people are keen to support us in our work. Crowdfunder is an excellent way…

I am one of the organisers of Kirkcudbright Book Week 2023, which is making a welcome return after twice being cancelled due to the covid outbreak – and now we are seeking sponsors.

The week, which will take place between Monday February 27 and Saturday March 4, 2023, is designed to celebrate the developing literary scene in…

I work with quite a few aspiring crime novelists as they get their manuscripts ready to submit to publishers and I contend that the final checks I suggest they do are absolutely crucial if they want to give themselves the best chance of success.

For authors, it means referring to a checklist which confirms that they have achieved what they set…

As you may know, I work with a number of authors, some already published, some about to be published and some still seeking their big break, and one of the things to which I devote a lot of time is the need to get the dialogue right. That’s because just as good dialogue lifts a story, so bad dialogue can wreck…

As I have mentioned in recent blogs, I am working on the next DCI John Blizzard novel and that means coming up with a villain on which so much of the story will be based.

I am not going to give away the nature of the villain in the book, to avoid ruining the surprise for those who read it, but suffice to say that a good way of making a…

The latest DCI Jack Harris crime novel continues to sell well and is riding high in a number of the bestsellers charts on Amazon.

Published by The Book Folks, The Girl in the Meadow sees Harris and his team embroiled in a challenging investigation after a skeleton is found during the refurbishment of a remote house on a windswept hill, having…

As I have said in previous blogs, writers can create the finest landscapes, devise the greatest stories and produce the most remarkable prose but they cannot make their narrative truly live unless they have devised effective characters.

This comes to mind at this specific time because I am busy creating new characters to appear alongside…