MURDER BEYOND UNDERSTANDING: NOV 28
That's the real thrill of a great bookshop - you can be led to a book which begins a whole new world of ideas. The last time I visited the excellent Toppings in Ely I was recommended the autobiography of Rudulf Hoess - the commandant of Auschwitz
CRIME GETS A SEAT AT THE TOP TABLE. Sept 7
I was as amazed as most of the audience at the Belstead Brook Hotel last night when the winner of the New Angle Prize was announced. I'd thought about what I would say if I won - but only in a kind of 'this will never happen' mood
CASE HISTORY: landscape and crime. July 13
The BBC adaption of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels was a treat. Jason isaacs made a terrific Brodie - having done the audio edition first. My only minor complaint was the decision to set the first two-parter in Edinbrugh - not the original Cambridge
NEW ANGLE PRIZE: SHOW CASE July 6
To Ipswich to meet Ronald Blythe, Maggi Hambling, Blake Morrison, Jeremy Page, M N Sanford and R J Fisk - all of us up for the New Angle Prize
THE SNOW TOURIST: June 13
I have before me the stunning front cover of Charlie English's The Snow Tourist - subtitled 'a search for the world's purest, deepest snowfall
ARE THE FENS SCANDANAVIAN? June 6
The Killing, Jar City, Wallendar, Stig Larsen: the Nordic thriller/crime wave just rolls on. It's not just sour grapes - I hope - but it seems to me that what we get out of these bleak, other-wordly, stories of crime in far away lands might be more accessible on our own doorsteps than we think
EASTERN PROMISE: May 10.
News that the Japanese edition of The Water Clock has already sold a thumping 7,000 copies is encouraging. I've begun some research on the market in Japan - so far without much luck. But en route I stumbled over this page (below) off wikipedia and thought I'd steal - I mean share - it
WICKEN FEN: April 21
I'm struggling at the moment with the issue of the flooding - or to be exact - the re-flooding of the Fens. The next Dryden novel, provisionally titled CLOUDLAND, will be set in the near future, or even a slightly different version of the here-and-now
CLOUD NINE: April 4
I'm well into the book after next - the return of Philip Dryden. It has been a long time in the background but now it is finally underway there is a definite feeling of excitment and release in my writing shed. And we have a working title: CLOUDLAND - which I love
GRAVEYARD HUMOUR January 30
Many thanks to all the fans who turned up for this year's launch at St Peter's Church in Ely. I think there were more than 150 of you - a full house. It was a great evening - at least I enjoyed it
IS IT GOODBYE TO THE SHED ? Dec 20
The last time I wrote a word in my beloved shed was sometime in October - during the fag end weeks of the summer. Suddenly I've lost the desire to sit on my own out on the allotments and think up the next plot, the next character, or the next acre of imaginary landscape
GOLD DUST. SEPT 16.
If you have ever wanted to write a crime novel you should check out this website: - www.gold-dust.org.uk. It offers a service to unpublished writers, in which established authors give them time, both face-to-face, and by internet link or post
GOOD QUESTION. August 1
National Crime Week, organised between libraries and the Crime Writers' Association, appears to have been barn-storming success. There are plans to build on this next year. I did five events - at Attleborough, Long Stratton, Hunstanton and King's Lynn, and with BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
IN ELY - from the makers of IN BRUGES. April 22
We watch DVD's at home using one of the national watch-and-post systems, so this week we settled down one evening to view In Bruges, the 2008 black comedy, written and directed by Martin McDonagh
LUMINOUS OWL: POSTED MARCH 28
I wanted to share a discovery with readers who are interested in landscape - in this case, the Fens, and East Anglia generally. Some time ago i was doing research online, trying to put together a talk entitled DEAD FLAT - crime writing in East Anglia
WHY KING'S LYNN: MARCH 19
In preparing for a short talk at Waterstone's in King's Lynn I asked myself a simple question: why did I choose the town for the setting for the Shaw and Valentine books ? It was a big decision, so you'd think I'd have the answer to hand, but it proved oddly elusive
WHERE MURDER LIVES: posted March 6
Over the last month I've been researching the string of infamous murders committed between Crippen in 1910 and Christie in 1953 in preparation for the talk I gave at the launch of the new book - Death Watch - in Ely on March 4
WALLANDER and the Fens: January 16
The BBC have clearly scored a palpable hit with their ambitious adaption of Henning Mankell's Wallander books. This second series, which finished, last night, is - if anything - better than the first
2010 BLOG
I have just been listening to P.D.James, the esteemed crime writer, on the Today programme. She took some time to lament the modern inclination for the genre to be a blood-splattered forensic-fest, replete with serial killers and skin-crawling flesh
WINTER WRITING: November 14
I'm out in the hut these days working on the fourth novel in the Shaw & Valentine series - provisionally entitled Death Mark. So far the series has been nicely balanced between the seasons. Death Wore White was set in a bleak snowy winter on the North Norfolk coast
September 10. Midsomer Murder
It's been a great summer for ideas. Abandoning the shed on the allotment (only briefly) we found ourselves in another hut up on the north Norfolk coast - see picture. It made me realise that a long line o fbeach huts are a perfect setting for murder
July 6
I've sat through many hundreds of coroner's court hearings but never one called out of a courtroom - a power coroner's still have
June 18
Just back from an excellent event at Winchester's Discovery Centre. Andrew Taylor and Peter Lovesey were in great form. I thought the best question of the evening came from the audience of about 80 who had braved the soft Hampshire rain
June 4
I have spent the morning in the writing hut struggling with the character of DS George Valentine
March 25
A forced retreat from the wiritng hut this morning due to battering storm from the SW. At one point the shed was hit by flying bits of plastic and wood from neighbours plots. And the pigeons, which tend to stamp around over my head, were being blown clean off as soon as they made landfall
BLOG date March 21
Just returned from the hut on the allotment where I write in the mornings. Spring is busting out, and there were plenty of people about trudging behind rotovators or digging up winter leeks. I came back becuase I needed to do some on-line research here in my office at home