Murder by the Book - publication week!

It seems like only yesterday that The Crooked Shore was published. I'll be talking more about my new novel shortly, but this month, I'm in the unusual and fortunate position of having two anthologies to celebrate. Later in August, the Murder Squad collection Many Deadly Returns will be published by Seven House, and I'll be launching the book along with my Murder Squad colleagues at Forum Books in Ann Cleeves' home town of Whitley Bay. 

But this week sees the appearance of another British Library Crime Classics anthology. Murder by the Book is sub-titled 'Mysteries for Bibliophiles' and I gather that advance sales have been extremely good (which is always nice to hear). So much so that there is already a possibility that I might be putting together a second book on a related theme, though nothing is yet settled. 

Again, I'm scheduled to do a bookshop event - this time at Toppings in Ely, later in the month. So if you're in that area, do check out the Toppings website for details. It's so good to be getting back into bookshops - I've missed them very much during the lockdowns. And I'm enjoying the chance to get around the country as well, which is genuine compensation for those cancelled overseas trips (for instance, I decided some time ago, with great regret, not to travel to New Orleans for Bouchercon, and now sadly the whole live event has been cancelled). 

As you can gather from this spate of publications, I have at least been able to keep busy with writing projects during the past eighteen months and in many ways the time has flown by. During that time I've also signed a contract to write two more Rachel Savernake books. One of them, Blackstone Fell, is already written. And before long it will be time to start on the fourth in the series. Meanwhile, there is a further project that has kept me occupied, and that will be announced shortly...