The Summer of Discontent

IT has been three months since my last blog which I posted full of hope that I might have a real chance of winning The People’s Book Prize down in old London Town.

Sadly, despite 11,000 votes, I lost out to an Amazon best seller from South Africa and it strikes me as long overdue that I said a huge and hearty thanks to everyone who took the time to support me and to all those kind folk who wished me all the best at the signings I have done all over the UK in the last year.

So a huge great big Gracias to all of you!

There were a lot of positives to take from a memorable night though, not least the chance to speak with literary legend Frederick Forsyth CBE, sport my modern Mitchell tartan trews all over London Town and soak up the atmosphere of the iconic Stationers” Hall!

I have been pretty much off the radar since then while trying to map out the next stage in my writing career and a torturous summer it has been in this regard.

Excerpts from the Thoroughgood follow up to ‘The Shift’, entitled ‘The Blood Acre’, the first in a new series about disgraced SAS anti-hero Ludovic Fear and my proposed Second World War epic ‘Operation Parsifal’ have been out with 12 different publishers and now, at last we have some concrete interest!

While I have spent the summer working on Parsifal, which has now broken the 50,000 word mark, I have also been appearing at various libraries, women’s business groups and hospices, giving talks about my books, hopes and ambitions…fortunately no one has fallen asleep yet! (clearly there is a first time for everything!!)

A fortnight this evening I will be making my debut appearance at Bloody Scotland along with Sunday Times best seller Clare Mackintosh and the acclaimed Kate London, with both ladies like my humble self, former police officers.

I am delighted to say that the show, entitled appropriately ‘Cops to Robbers’, is very close to a 120 seat sell out, which probably has everything to do with the illustrious status of the two lady panellists and very little with my own stuttering efforts!

Anyway should you wish to purchase one of the few remaining tickets, priced reasonably at either £8 or £7 concession, you can click on The Bloody Scotland website or call 01786 27400, for what, knowing coppers as I do, should be a lively entertaining and insightful evening, which starts at 5.30pm in Stirling’s atmospheric Allan Park South Church!

It is my hope that by then my own writing career will be resolved and I will at last be a big step closer to announcing who my new publisher is, what my next book will be and drawing this summer of discontent and disappointment to a close!

Until then, as always, in the words of the AC/DC song (almost)….I write on!!