I work in genre. I’m not terribly interested in multi-generational family sagas or angsty on-off romances in Paris and Prague. I quite like existential crises in novels but anything with children leaves me cold (although there are plenty of exceptions). I greatly respect Kate Atkinson but can see her readers nodding their heads in recognition […]

Mario Bava’s ‘Blood and Black Lace’ was not the first Giallo, but in it all of the right elements and perfectly aligned. Murders of beautiful women in a gothic fashion house by a killer in black leather gloves. Sadistic deaths, lighting more Grand Guignol than Giallo. This was cinema of the senses, more decadent and […]

A Giallo is a story that starts with a lurid murder that tracks the killer to a plausible solution. At least, in theory. It might have elements of sexuality, suspense, thrills, gore, perversity, even (bad) comedy. It is above all sensual. Every sense is heightened, but the senses are not to be trusted. The protagonist is […]

Serendipity plays a large part in finding inspiration I’m thinking of starting another book, and to do so I’m going through the hunter/gatherer process that always occurs at this stage. It’s complicated and works differently every time, but part of it involves churning through the work of many writers and thinking about the way they […]

Let’s have one last blast of misery, stupidity and hypocrisy from the press clippings file. These were culled from the national press during the writing of my collection ‘Red Gloves’, and no doubt influenced the extreme bleakness of the ‘Home’ volume (it has two volumes, Tales from Home and Tales from Abroad, which is generally more upbeat). […]

  A lovely book discussion from members of the online crime fiction festival Hull Noir, feat. the superlative dame noir Cathi Unsworth, author of the knockout Bad Penny Blues, here banging on about Bryant & May…

Has He Reached ‘National Treasure’ Status? They always say it about Alan Bennett, although his field of interest, outside of his wonderful diaries and his fascination with Kafka, eventually returned to being more parochial. Mr Jonathan Coe is another matter entirely. He eschews intellectual chilliness at the risk of being excluded from the so-called literary […]

As the very first copies of the new Bryant & May novel start to go out, I know I’m about to face a few questions. The very first is going to be, what happens now? Here’s the state of play.  Intimation of mortality concentrates the mind wonderfully, so I’ve been very busy. Pre-pandemic, I set […]

‘Sensible Thinking’ Friends working in media spent a decade keeping Fox News out of the UK. They did it not because they were politically opposed to the channel’s views but because it stoked fear in the vulnerable for ratings. The arrival of Andrew Neil’s GB News, a US-style news opinion channel partly funded out of […]

This just arrived at Fowler Towers. I am beyond excited. It’s out July 22nd. There WILL be signed first edition giveaways. As you were.