One Month To Go

There's just a month to go until the publication of Tell Tale, the fourth book in the DI Charlotte Savage series (cover below).

Once again sterling work by the Avon/HarperCollins team in prepping the book. Also a big "thanks" to James Oswald for providing a great review/cover quote. I've long been a fan of James's unique brand of detective fiction so favourable comments from him are especially welcome.

Tell Tale can be read without reading the other CS books, but those who have read Cut Dead (book three) will have been waiting keenly to discover what happens after the final page cliff hanger (believe me after writing the final page I too wanted to know what happened!).

As mentioned in the previous post I have started writing book five. Without giving anything away a few of Charlotte's "issues" are wrapped up in Tale Tale meaning five returns to a good old-fashioned "hunt the killer" type book. There will be twists galore, plenty of surprise and I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying there will likely be a body or three.

Happy New Year

A belated happy New Year to everyone and apologies for the paucity of blog posts in 2014. It is something I intend to rectify in 2015 (if I can keep to my New Years resolutions!).

For me the start of the year is usually about two things. First, the publication of the next Charlotte Savage book. We’re up to number four already. Tell Tale will be out on 12th February in e-book and paperback, the latter available, as they say, from all good bookshops. Second, this week has seen me start book number five and, to be honest, I’m really looking forward to the task ahead. Tell Tale was a complete PITA to write, easily the most difficult so far. Those of you who have read the first three books will know why: Tell Tale sees the resolution of one particular story arc concerning Charlotte’s dead daughter, Clarissa. In addition the real world disrupted my writing schedule and for a couple of months I lost focus. Thank God for my editor! She steered me back onto the straight and narrow and Tell Tale is, I think, a coherent piece of work (I'll leave it to others to judge if it's any good or not).

I can’t tell you exactly what book five is going to be about because I don’t know myself. I do know that I’ll be returning to the serial killer motif, so good citizens of Devon beware! Next week I’m going to be out and about scouting some locations and one place is particularly creepy. I’ll be sure to post a couple of pictures. In the meantime, to coin a phrase, don’t have nightmares!