I was recently thrilled to have signed a contract for my new book, Scream Blue Murder, due to be published by Bloodhound Books in November. This one is a real change of pace for me – literally – in that it is a fast-paced action thriller which was written with a momentum that matched the storyline. It features a world-weary, dispirited Mike Lynch who stumbles upon a murder and is himself hunted down as the prime suspect. But there are other hunters in addition to the police. Scream Blue Murder is the first in an intended series.
Prior to its release, Bloodhound will also be publishing my dark psychological crime thriller, Degrees of Darkness, on 28 September 2017. Here, ex-detective Frank Rogers is called upon to help hunt down a serial killer who murdered his son and ex-wife and also abducted his daughter, for whom time is quickly running out. Degrees of Darkness is a stand-alone novel.
When I signed my first contract for Bloodhound, it was for both Bad to the Bone (featuring DI Jimmy Bliss and DC Penny Chandler) and a second – unwritten at the time - novel in the series. This will be published early in 2018. The book is currently in second draft form, and with a couple of beta readers who will be letting me know shortly whether the story as it stands holds together. After that I dig down deep into it and both edit and polish until I am happy to send it across to my publishers. Its working title – other than bliss 2 J - is The Hag’s Lament.
Meanwhile, I am piecing together scraps of storyline for two more novels: a third in the Bliss and Chandler series, and a second in the Mike Lynch series. ‘Bliss 3’ has a sketched out storyline, characters and into its third chapter of tentative, exploratory writing. It’s been a while since I was at this stage, and I’m as nervous about it now as I have ever been.