Over a hundred people turned out to hear me talk about my flawed and rugged detective, DI Andy Horton on 11 June at Solent U3A.  I entertained members of the audience with tales of the dogged Portsmouth cop and explained how I plot, research and write my crime novels set on the South Coast of England.…

The inspiration for Death Surge came like all the other novels in the series featuring the flawed and rugged detective DI Andy Horton from the location. It is locations that inspire me and with the Horton series,set…

Severn House Publishershas bought World English language rights to the eleventh in the mystery crime series featuring the flawed and rugged DI Andy Horton.

Shroud of Evil will be published in the UK and Commonwealth in April 2014 in…

I'm often asked if I have a writing routine. There are writers who write the same time every day come what may; others who will write a certain number of words every day and when they've done their quota, they'll knock off.  Me? I have no real set routine but I do like to write every day, speaking engagements permitting.



Some days when the words flow or I am at a…

A late post this week because I was off to Black Belt Camp on Thursday.

Once again, I must admit I didn't write the basic points to this blog. I did, however write the details under each point. This blog is credited to author Will Lavender, who I met at the 2012 Killer Nashville conference. He presented this seminar on plot fundamentals.

I enjoyed this seminar even though I'm a…

My fictional detective, DI Andy Horton, is based in the Solent  area and the Horton marine mystery crime novels include members of a fictional Hampshire Police Marine Unit - Sergeant Dai Elkins and PC Ripley who are nothing like the two police officers I introduced on Saturday from the team of the Hampshire Marine Police Unit at the Crime…

Having used up tons of scraps of paper (re-cycled from having to print off reams of previous manuscripts) and having almost worn my pencil down to a stub, not to mention making my office look like a waste paper tip, I am now a great deal happier with the plot of the next Andy Horton police procedural marine mystery crime novel, which will be number seven in the series set on the south coast of England around the…

You think about the plot and sub plots. You think about the characters and their motivations. You think about the weather and the time of year the novels take place. And you think about the locations. In fact you think about everything there is to think about when writing a novel, and rather than spending my time sitting in a room and staring out of a window thinking, I prefer to do most of mine while walking. Not only does this help to keep me fit but it's a well known fact…

Working on the next Inspector Andy Horton, the sixth in the series, I am reminded of a question a reader asked me at a talk I gave recently. How do prevent repeating yourself? The answer can be both with great difficulty, and do I need to worry about this anyway?

Once you find an author you like you search for other novels he or she has written because the style of the writing appeals to you. Therefore a degree of repetition is part of…