Sea View
This is the view from my writer’s eyrie – a flat on the coast of Houlgate, on the Normandy coast. A balcony over the sea is many people’s idea of the perfect place to craft a lyrical sentence, plot a lanquid thriller, or think deeply about what lies at the heart of the next book.…
White Lie launched….
More than one hundred book fans turned out for the launch of the polar thriller. The highlight was questions from the audience – as always – and we covered issues such as the boundary between fiction and fact, comparisons between Captain Scott’s 1910 expedition and the Apollo moonshot of 1969, and the doomed earlier adventures…
Looking for Buzz
Inspiration for The White Lie came from many places, but none was more profound than the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969. Just like Scott’s Expedition, that of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins left civilisation behind, relying on a small capsule not unlike an Antarctic ‘Cook’s Tent’, and travelled through an almost featureless desert…
Looks great!
There’s something about a paperback. Perhaps it goes back to childhood. All those dull books in the school library, or the bookcase at home (just the one). They were always hardbacks. Paperbacks were exciting – science fiction, Arthur C Clarke, crime, Agatha Christie, thrillers from Hammond Innes, or the latest adventure from Enid Blyton. There’s…
A sideways look
My next book – The Missing Heart – is a thriller set in two time frames – D-Day 1944, and Hastings 1066. One army lands in France, the other in Sussex. Hopefully the story is taut, and tense, and pacey with lots of action. But it’s also about something, but mainly courage, cowardice, and redemption.…
One more going to St Ives
With my visit to St Ives – Huntingdon – my spring tour came to an end with a riddle: ‘As I was going to St Ives I met a man with severn wives, each wife had severn sacks, each sack had seven cats, each cat had seven kits: kits, cats, sacks, wives, how many were…
Water Clocks
The Fens are full of surprises. I was in Ramsey last night, talking to book lovers at the library. I spent a winderful hour beforehand visiting Ramsey’s excentric satellites – Ramsey Forty Foot, Ramsey Heights (15 feet), Ramsey St Mary, Ramsey Mereside, Ramsey End and Ramsey Hollow. We talked about the love of books, the…
Next talk – Ramsey
I will be at Ramsey Library at 7pm on March 30th. Hope to see you there. I will be talking about The Silent Child and the emotional impact of campanilismo – the bond between people and place. And what a place to do it! I’m looking foreard to seeing Ramsey Forty Foot, Ramsey St Mary’s,…
Booklovers turn out for The Silent Child
Wonderful turnout last night at St Neot’s Library. April 30th will be Ramsey Library – tickets still available. Booklovers turn out for The Silent Child
The Silent Child on tour.
I will be out talking about The Silent Child this spring – and here are the dates of the first four events in Cambridgshire. Watch this space for future events. Or keep up to date by following me on twitter…………….. St Neots Library Wednesday, March 15th Evening. Ramsey Library Thursday, March 30th Evening. Milton Rd Library Thursday,…
The snow detective
Snow is the crime writer’s best friend. A single blizzard creates a virtual ‘locked room’ – for no killer can enter or leave without leaving footsteps. And there is something about a white landscape which conjurs up the blank page, the perfect setting for a story to begin. When writing the Philip Dryden books I…
Squinting at history
The great thing about the past is that it is open to visitors. I spent a recent day out in the wild Badlands of Bedfordshire visiting a series of historical sites – the picture shows one of them – the pack horse bridge at Sutton. It’s five hundred years old and used to offer a…
The Eye in the Sky
Evoking place is a mysterious skill. It is quite possible to paint a perfect picture for the reader but still somehow leave the image dead on the page. And then, magically, one single detail can bring it all alive. Writing The Silent Child presented a challenge as two thirds of the narrative unfurled in Berlin…
Where was The Silent Child born?
You never know where you might find a good story to tell, but history is a wonderful place to start. The Silent Child, my latest book, is set firmly within two historical timeframes: Poland in the Second World War, and a Berlin in 1961 divided into zones by the Allied Powers of the Soviet Union,…