When I was fifteen or so, on a family holiday in Majorca, I befriended a group of local Spanish kids. They were older than me and led by Juan, an eighteen year old whose father was one of the richest men on the island. Juan drove Number Five, a Ferrari red catamaran that his father had co-piloted to third place in the world speedboat championship a few years before. It was a monster.



I mention this because my research trip to Monte Carlo last week (see… Continue

Is history repeating itself?



A few weeks before the US publication of The Double Eagle in 2005, the US Government made a sensational announcement. Ten 1933 Double Eagles, the same incredibly rare $20 coins that feature at the heart of my novel, had been seized from the family of one of the dealers implicated in the original 1940s enquiry. Given the plot of my novel (the recovery of five Double Eagle coins stolen from Fort Knox), it was an incredible coincidence that did not go… Continue

I'm up to 11 fans on my Facebook fansite now. Eleven. Onze. Elf. Once. Undici. Whichever way you say it, it doesn't get any bigger. Come on… Continue

Now I don't

normally like to blow my own trumpet (although I knew someone at school

who was double jointed and used to smugly claim that he could) but in

this case I couldn't resist.



Yes, it's official, I have a fan club. And no it wasn't set up by my mum. It's on the stupidly popular… Continue

God I feel virile! Not in a rip her knickers off and ride her bareback sort

of way (at least no more than usual). I'm talking about a much more

basic, instinctive, hunter-gatherer sort of virility. The sort that

drinks beer, farts a lot, finds the word "bottom" funny, watches

endless repeats of Buffy (or is that just me?) and can, whatever the

time, city or state of inebriation, navigate unerringly to the… Continue