No Alibi

Apart from London in 1990, the only other time Bouchercon was held in England was in 1995, when the location was Nottingham. By this time, I’d published several novels and I enjoyed not only moderating a panel but becoming more widely involved.

One stand-out experience was that Gllian Linscott and Stephen Murray invited me to join up with them in a performance at the theatre of a script they had written about the detectives and the detective story. It was a very good script, and quite an honour to be involved. Both Gill and Stephen were and are excellent writers. Lately Gill has reinvented herself as Caro Peacock. I’m sorry to say that Stephen has not published crime fiction for several years, but I hope he will return to the fray in due course.

In the 1990s, Maxim Jakubowski organised a number of successful ‘Shots on the Page’ crime conventions in Nottingham and he was also the organising genius (or one of them) behind the Bouchercon. One of his clever ideas was to edit an anthology of stories linked to the convention. It was called No Alibi and it appeared no fewer than three separate editions – including a limited edition, signed by all the contributors, which I cherish. The book included not only a story of mine but also the work of great names such as Rankin, Hoch, Block, McDermid, Harvey and Robinson.

Incidentally, I've added two very good blogs to the blogroll. Criminal Brief is a collective effort, featuring among others the American crime expert Steve Steinbock, whom I hope to meet at Bouchercon. And The Shadow Walker is the work of Michael Walters, who unlike Steve lives quite close to me - but as yet, we haven't met....