Jeffery Deaver and Peter James are lined up to take part in this year’s Crimefest and I'm delighted to be there with them.

Peter James and Pauline Rowson, looking very happy or a bit sozzled! CrimeFest 2011

I haven't met Jeffrey Deaver but I am sure that his Thriller Writing Seminar as part of the festival’s Crime…

I came upon an article recently about the serial killer who holds the sad record of murdering the most people in Great Britain.  While your thoughts may automatically turn to someone with the likes of Jack the Ripper or perhaps a European version of Ted Bundy, the…

Comment on the S.D. Skye Virtual Book Tour For A Chance to Win a Kindle Fire & $25 Gift Card

Hello Book Lovers! 



I'm…

Just by way of introducing myself, I thought members would be interested to know that my million-seller of ten years ago REDEMPTION BLUES has just been re-edited and issued for the first time as an e-book. You can find it at http://tinyurl.com/cgpjhr9

The novel was a huge hit in mainland Europe ten years ago, but - while that was very gratifying - that means it's hardly been read in English. Which is odd, because it's a…

Hi, Crimesters,

I posted this for the Bloody Valentine blog hop and thought it might suit us here as well:

Nicolai and Elena Ceaușescu – two of the wackiest Communist dictators of the Cold War era (and I don’t use the term “wacky” lightly) – were executed on Christmas day, 1989.  And to the bitter end, they were madly in love.

I was going to write a…

At the weekend I finished writing DI Andy Horton number ten. It's always a scary moment when I press 'send' on the keyboard and a new crime novel wings its way through the ether to my publisher, Severn House. I wonder could I have done better? Should I have rephrased something or added or omitted something? But it's done. Now I wait to see if my publisher likes it. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile it's on with…

DI Andy Horton has been described as 'an especially good series hero, a likable fellow with plenty of street smarts and the requisite personal baggage - an abrasive supervisor (DCI Lorraine Bliss) and an antagonistic soon to be ex wife.' Booklist (USA) Footsteps on the Shore.

Heroes in detective novels are often ordinary people with their own set of problems and the key to producing a successful crime novel is not necessarily that the hero saves the world, aka James Bond, but…

The job of a crime scene investigator isn’t glamorous or exotic as it is portrayed on popular television shows or even in the movies.  This daunting task is extremely important and necessary for any criminal police investigation in order to find out who committed the crime and to bring the perpetrator(s) to justice.…

Statistics regarding crime consistently bear out the fact that illegal activity is higher during the warmer months of the year.  It could be that the hot temperatures have everyone irritated and on edge, so violence is more likely.  Some blame the fact that…

 …

In Prague, I lived in a building a lot like the one(s) in this photo from The Third Man.  Not enough light; the faucets barely worked; there was a weird film poster of “Nanuk of the North” left behind by the previous tenant.  And I mean weird.  Like a cockamamie merger of Eskimo soft-porn and man and dog buddy adventure.   But I loved that place, and it still gives me…

Thank you to everyone who has visited and subscribed to my blog  – it doesn’t go unappreciated.  When I first decided to create a blog, I was apprehensive at first.  Well let’s get serious, I was terrified.  I thought I’d be writing articles just for myself and no one would care about the posts I wrote, but I was…

Every week seems to bring a new story of how advances in forensic technology are bringing closure to cold cases that had been held in police files without leads for ten years, twenty years, or longer.  The scientific community and law enforcement are working together to bring closure to families who just a few years ago may have thought the ability…

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Emily Stone is a woman with three independent novel adventures and a growing list of captured serial killers to prove it.   Every case, every missing child, and every serial killer stalking victims on the west coast…

Photo: Texas Dept. of Safety

None of us started where we want to be in our chosen profession.  We have to take courses, practice a skill, develop a good reputation with clients, or a variety of other activities that…

I'm back from a very successful mini tour of the North East of England where I was invited to give two talks.

This is the third time in three years that I have given talks to readers in the North East of England and I shall once again be in the area in April 2013 taking part in CSI Gateshead at Gateshead Library, a mini version of CSI Portsmouth, which I help to organise every year as part of Portsmouth…

To say that the James Bond franchise hasn’t influenced me or my writing would be…