I’m thrilled that Alice Munro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I’ve loved her work for years, since I picked up ‘Lives of Girls and Women’ when it was published by The Women’s Press. Her writing is so good, so visceral, it stops my my breath.
Kate Shackleton receives a dawn telephone call from her cousin James, a civil servant in the India Office. James tells Kate that a visiting Indian prince has gone missing from the Duke of Devonshire’s Yorkshire estate, leaving behind his female companion, a former Folies Bergere dancer. James asks Kate to…
At the Malice Domestic Convention, Bethesda, Maryland, and at the Mystery Lovers’ event in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, we authors sat in alphabetical order during the signing sessions. That’s how I got to know Janet Bolin and Mollie Cox Bryan. Janet invited me to blog at Killer Characters, where the characters do…
In May I spoke at the Yorkshire Post Literary Lunch at the Cairn Hotel, Harrogate, alongside Roy Hattersley, author and former deputy leader of the Labour Party. I had the pleasure of sitting next to the outgoing mayoress. This was the final event she and her husband would attend, after…
This was my first time at the Malice Domestic Fun Fan Crime Convention, held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Bethesda, Maryland. I took the same flight as Ann Cleeves of Vera and Shetland fame. Here she is, third from left behind the table, helping to empty cartons of books to …
Hard to believe it’s almost Easter. I battled through snow and ice to my signings in East Yorkshire last Saturday. The views from the train window made up for the icy blasts. This is the landscape David Hockney has made famous through his fabulous paintings. No vibrant yellows and greens…
Murder on a Summer’s Day (Kate Shackleton #5) is with my editor. Because I’m not ready to start #6, I’m clearing the study, which is practical and therapeutic but also a touch ritualistic. Years ago, while working in a chilly attic, I wore a big sweater, washed so many times…
The Kate Shackleton mysteries start 2013 with a hat trick. January sees the US paperback publication of DYING IN THE WOOL; in February, the hardback of A MEDAL FOR MURDER will be published in the US; in March comes the UK paperback publication of A WOMAN UNKNOWN. I’m looking forward…
For me, the supreme movie car chase takes place in the 1969 film THE ITALIAN JOB. Red, white and blue Mini Coopers race through Turin with their cargo of gold, stolen under the noses of the police and the mafia. You’ve probably seen the film, but here’s a clip of…
Julia Stagg, author of L’AUBERGE and THE PARISIAN’S RETURN, has invited me to take part in a blog event entitled THE NEXT BIG THING – a series of questions and answers about what’s happening in my writing life. What is the working title of your book? The next big thing…
