The Icknield Way

As you know last week I had a whale of a time listening to Robert Macfarlane's book The Old Ways which I just thought was wonderful and up there with the best travel writers I've read. Macfarlane began his journey in part as an homage to the Welsh writer Edward Thomas who was killed in World War 1 and who was one of the first old way walker/explorer/writers in England. Macfarlane took with him The Icknield Way where Thomas wrote about his journey on "the oldest road in England" that runs from East to West (or West to East) over the chalk downs from Cambridgeshire to Hampshire. It's a happy coincidence that Macfarlane began his book (where he began following Edward Thomas's route) just a little to the south east of the village of Sawston which is where my novel Falling Glass ends. Like I say this is only a coincidence but a strange one as Sawston is a beautiful, but nondescript, out of the way sort of place.
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Just as one book leads to another so reading Macfarlane has led me to Thomas's Icknield Way that my local library did not have but which has been scanned and put online by an archivist from the University of California. Helpfully the archivist provided an embed code so I was able to blog the entire book below. I appreciate that only 1% of the people who chance on this blogpost will be interested enough to read the below book, but that's ok, you're the 1% I do everything for anyway. The best way to read it is to click the full screen button and then the two page option (the two rectangles). The dedication at the beginning is off puttingly dry but, trust me, the rest of the book is charming. If you're interested in British travel writing in the Golden Age (and if you're not you should be) then you'll enjoy this. Other authors worth checking out from this era are: Robert Byron, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Peter Fleming, Freya Stark, Rebecca West and the travel books of Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene. Anyway thanks to the University of California, here's Thomas's lovely, eccentric, borderline mystical, Icknield Way:

Falling Glass Wins!

A big thank you to everyone who voted for Falling Glass as it's been awarded the Crime Always Pays, Irish crime novel of the year. As Declan Burke explains on his blog it was a bumper year for Irish crime fiction and certainly any of the terrific books in the category could have won. I think as a novel Falling Glass slipped between the cracks a little bit. It got good reviews in The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Irish Independent etc. etc. but it didn't really set the world on fire. To do that I suppose you need the right zeitgeist and a little bit of luck. Still it's been the little engine that could and I'm very happy to take the CAP Irish crime novel of the year award. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago the audiobook version has already been picked as Audible's Best Mystery or Thriller for 2011. 
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Falling Glass is out in mass market paperback in the UK and Ireland in a fortnight and it'll be out in mass market in Australia and NZ soon after that. The cool looking German version will be out in April 2012. There is no US version, alas, because (to quote a well known US publishing house) its not commercial enough. Thank you very much to everyone who voted for me or reviewed Falling Glass online, I really appreciate it. 

Book Of The Year

Audible.com has picked Falling Glass as its best mystery or thriller of the year. I am absolutely delighted and also amazed; there are thousands of mysteries released as audiobooks every year and if you look at who I topped in this category its quite the collection of superstars. These are big names whose publishers supported their books with massive amounts of advertising, book tours and media appearances. Because I have been unable to find a US publisher Falling Glass had zero advertising, I didn't do a book tour and I did zero media. Falling Glass got the top spot on its writing and more importantly, I'm sure, because of the excellent performance by that brilliant actor and narrator Gerard Doyle. 
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I give a lot of credit to the editors at Audible who saw through the hype machines of the big publishers and picked the book they liked the best. I thank also the writers who reviewed Falling Glass on their blogs, the 207 listeners who rated the book on Audible and the people who took the time and trouble to review Falling Glass on Audible's web site, on Amazon proper and Good Reads. I really do appreciate it. I always read reviews and though I often violently disagree I take them all on board. A big thank you also to Mr Doyle and everyone at Blackstone Audiobooks. 
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Despite this award and the great reviews in the British press I still don't have a US publishing house. Why? Well, the book business is an arcane world. Publishers and editors say they like to try the new and the different but in fact they don't. Apart from the rebel badasses at Serpents Tail everywhere its the same story: if you don't fall neatly into one of their genre boxes they don't know what to do with you. I've always had that problem and rather than pander to the lowest common denominator I've always wanted to write my own books in my own way. Sometimes you pay the price: Here in Australia my publishers Allen and Unwin were so unconvinced by Falling Glass they didn't email me about it or tell me when it was coming out and it was a huge surprise when I just happened to see it in my local bookshop. It's hard enough to write a book but when you struggle to get noticed even by your own local publisher you do sometimes wonder what's the bloody point.
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But maybe the struggle is the point. I bet if I put my mind to it I could write a knock off Michael Connolly or Lee Child and make boatloads of cash. But I don't want to. I'm not that much of a cynic and books are too important to me. I don't want to write for money or for the whims of editors in corner offices, I want to write the books that move me and make me think and make me excited. My readers get invested not just in the characters and the story but also in the words and sentences that make up the story. My readers like irony and judicial profanity. My readers like a good joke and a well turned phrase. My readers admire wit. My readers know who Seamus Heaney is. My readers DONT HAVE TO HAVE EVERY LAST THING EXPLAINED TO THEM. My readers aren't prudes. My readers don't have to be told why its wrong to pour a shamrock on the head of a pint of Guinness. My readers can spot the gag in the sentence that begins chapter 2 of Falling Glass. My readers can recite poems from memory. My readers aren't frightened by a page without dialogue. My readers can name the Presidents back to 1932. My readers are sometimes poleaxed but seldom banjaxed. My readers are a select group and, you know what, I'm really glad about that. Slainte. 

No Alibis

Remember when David and Saul joined forces to do battle with the enemies of Jehovah at Mt Gilboa? And remember when the Sex Pistols played at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester and everyone there subsequently formed a band? And remember when JD Salinger and Ernest Hemingway liberated the bar of the Ritz Hotel in August 1944? Of course you do, you're a well read man/woman about town. Well on Thursday night for one night only Declan Burke and I request the pleasure of your company for a similar epoch defining event when we read from our new novels at No Alibis Bookshop in Belfast.
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There will be fireworks, sparklers, possibly glo sticks. If things go badly Dec and I will slip to the panic room or we will perform Abbot and Costello's Who's on First routine...Do come along. That's No Alibis Bookshop, Belfast, Thursday the 18th of August at 6.00 p.m.
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And if you want to hear my interview yesterday with Kim Lenaghan on BBC Radio Ulster's Arts Extra you can do so here. 

On The Road Again

Last year Colin Bateman and Stuart Neville showed up to
heckle me. If you were there you'll remember that I retorted by
bursting into tears and running into the street.

I'm heading home to Belfast today. It's a long flight through many strange and interesting destinations (Stansted Airport anyone?) so I may be offline for a bit. I will be posting some new (and some recycled blogs) over the next week or so and certainly feel free to comment, but be aware that I probably won't be able to reply until I get back to Melbourne...I'm not ignoring you, just away from my desk - either that or, you know, clinging to a piece of wreckage in the Indian Ocean. 
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And if you're in the neighbourhood why don't you come see me and Declan Burke read from our new novels at No Alibis bookshop on Botanic Avenue, Belfast next Thursday. There will be blood. Or more likely wine, cheese and a few funny stories from Dec. From me expect broody silence and the odd monosyllabic, gutteral remark. It'll be fun. Bring the kids. That's Thursday August 18th at 6.00 pm. Remember when Oscar Wilde went on his lecture tour of the United States? It'll be like that. Except totally different. 
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I'm also going to try to visit The Games of Thrones set. (If anyone can hook me up with that I'd really appreciate it.) If I make it to the set I'll take some pics and put them up on the blog. 

The Critical Consensus On Falling Glass

When you've finished writing a novel you have no idea how it's going to be received. It's definitely not like the moment when Paul McCartney played Hey Jude for the rest of the Beatles and everyone in the room knew that they were listening to a classic. No, books are much more subjective. For every person who loves Naked Lunch and thinks it's a masterpiece there are ten who hate it. There are exceptions...I've yet to find someone who hates Charlotte's Web but I'm sure there is a nutter out there somewhere who doesn't dig it. (Apologies if you are that nutter.)
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When I finished editing Falling Glass last October I hated the bloody book. I'd read it through half a dozen times and that was enough to kill any love I had for the jokes, the set pieces, the characters etc. I was also discouraged by the rejections I was getting from American publishers who felt it "wasn't commercial enough." My old house, Scribner, passed, Henry Holt passed, St Martin's passed. We started showing it to smaller presses who often boast about publishing "outsider voices from different perspectives" etc. and they all said no too. My Australian publishers didn't even tell me when the book was coming out and I only knew it was out here because I happened to chance upon it in a shop. 
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My UK publishers Serpents Tail liked it but they've always been very supportive of me and I did wonder if secretly they hated it and just wanted to spare my feelings. I'll chalk it up to experience I thought. No one wants to read a noir story about Irish Travellers in contemporary Ireland. I'll know better next time...
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But then the reviews started coming in...And the reviews told a vastly different story from what the voices in my head were saying. Spinetingler Magazine was one of the first out of the gate and they loved the book. Spinetingler ran a review and an extract and an interview. The next review I read was in The Guardian newspaper and the Guardian loved it too. Next came an extremely positive review in the Irish Times (and this from a paper who have sent me a few rockets in the past). Last week I got a lengthy write up at The Crime Of It All and just yesterday I got a great review in the Irish Independent from Declan Burke - a man who knows his onions where crime fiction is concerned. Declan's review was interesting because Falling Glass got the lead in the paper above John Banville's latest novel. There have been other reviews along the way on blogs, in newspapers and on Amazon. The only people I've come across who really disliked Falling Glass were a couple of listeners on Audible who couldn't get into the story or "found the narrator dry" whatever that means. My old pal Bookwitch wasn't convinced by the ending and I've had a few emails from people who also felt the same...In general though, as I said in a blog post last week, this is the best reviewed book I've had since Dead I Well May Be.
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Johnny Foreigner has also gotten on board. Serpents Tail have sold the rights to Germany, France and a couple of other EU countries which means that you can get Falling Glass in the entire British Commonwealth and most of Europe but, crucially, not North America. I have to say that I beg to differ with all the American publishers who claim that the book is not commercial in the US market. There is one place and only one place where Falling Glass is available in the US and that's on Audible.com. On Audible, as of today I've had 132 ratings, an average rating of 4.11 (out of 5), and twenty one written reviews.  By way of comparison, despite heavy advertising, a recent profile in The New Yorker, radio and TV interviews and a book tour, the latest John Banville crime novel has 10 ratings, 1 customer review and an average rating of 3.30. I'm not knocking Banville but I am knocking the US publishers who think there is no market for me or my novels. The listeners and - a fortiori - the readers are out there!
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Before I get off this solipsistic topic forever I would like to thank EVERYONE who has written a review of any of my books on Good Reads, on a blog, on Audible, in print, on any of the Amazons etc. I do read all the reviews and I take seriously what people say. I often completely disagree with you but if you've taken the trouble to review my book I will read it. And even if the corporate suits in mid town Manhattan don't want to take a chance on me, well there's nothing I can do about that, but I sure do appreciate your support. Go raibh maith agaibh

Falling Glass Review & Interview

There's a very well thought out review of Falling Glass over at The Crime Of It All, here. It's the longest review of the book I've seen and it really gets beneath the surface of what I was attempting to do with the novel. It's a nice piece of writing too from Cormac O'Siochain. It's interesting to me that the critical consensus on Falling Glass has been so positive, from newspaper critics, blog critics and other professional reviewers; it's actually turned out to be my best reviewed book since Dead I Well May Be. It's also got some great reviews on Amazon, Amazon.co.uk and it got a Best Of The Year nod and some very sweet comments on Audible.com. And yet? Well, the big yet is that I can't find a US publisher for the novel. No one's interested. The major presses have turned me down and the small presses too. Is the story too Irish? Too contemporary? I don't know. John Banville was smart to set his crime novels in 1950's Dublin. I guess that's the Ireland Americans are comfortable reading about: the Ireland of horses and carts, smoky pubs, priests, Angela's Ashes and The Quiet Man. . . Them's the breaks I suppose, but for those of you awaiting the US release of Falling Glass, please don't hold your breath. 
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The Crime Of It All is also running an interview I did with Len Wanner last year. There you'll find my thoughts on Ken Bruen, Dostoyevsky and the title of the one book I think everyone should read. In a remarkable proof of my lack of prescience I also lambast the Irish Times for always reviewing my books badly, I talk about Ireland's economic "boom" (Ha!) and I misspell the word "recuse". 

The Ending Of Falling Glass

I've had an unusual amount of correspondence about the ending of my novel Falling Glass. I wouldn't say complaints as such but there have been quite a few people who have written and emailed me asking for a definite answer as to what I think happened at the very end. I don't normally like to dissect my own books or over analyse them, but just this once I felt I should clear up one or two issues about the ending. If you haven't read the book and you don't like spoilers you should stop reading right now.

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Ok if you're still with me I assume you've read the book or you don't mind the old spoiler or two...The first thing I'd like to make clear is that there will not be a sequel to Falling Glass. It's a standalone novel. We won't be seeing Killian ever again. The second thing I'd like to make clear is that this is the final appearance of Michael Forsythe. We won't be seeing him again either. With that in mind you should appreciate that the ending of Falling Glass is not supposed to be a cliff hanger. The story will not be continued in a subsequent book. It ends there for both characters.
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Ahh, that's all very well but what actually happens??!!! you want to know. Well the answer to that question is that I don't actually know. It's a little bit like Schrodinger's Cat: which exists in the quantum state both alive and dead until Professor Schrodinger opens the box. Michael Forsythe and Killian come from two different schools of thought and two different approaches to life. Killian uses words as weapons, Michael is no dummy but he is the embodiment of action. For Michael "the hand is the cutting edge of the mind" but for Killian resorting to violence is almost always a failure of method. Inevitably when these two characters meet we're going to want to know which philosophy triumphs. But of course there's no definitive answer. It's a question that's come up again and again throughout history and it has never been adequately resolved. What I prefer to do is push the characters into the final confrontation and leave them there in that strange quantum entangled world where neither one is the winner or the loser. I'm afraid that if you want a definitive answer as to what happens at the end of Falling Glass then you are going to have to pick a side for yourself. As for me, well, I choose not to.
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Hope that helps.

Yes We Have No Bananas, Yes We Have No Bananas...But We Do Have A Winner

First let me thank everyone who entered the Falling Glass freebie competition. If you didnt win, it was not a reflection on your lack of skill because really there was no way you could have worked this one out.
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In the deleted scene from Falling Glass it comes out that Killian, an Irish Traveller, was born in England on St George's Day making him more English than the English. He's in New York for this birthday and he gets made fun of and bullied a little by the crew he's working with. Anyway I cut the scene but his birthday remains. April 23rd. The astoudingly clever/very very jammy Katherine Howell completely deduced/blindly guessed the answer and the book is on its merry way to her. 
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Incidentally in the novel Dracula, by that other dodgy Irishman, Bram Stoker, evil things are said to happen on St George's Day..It's also Shakespeare's birthday and that of Lee Majors.
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Normal blog service will resume tomorrow.

Falling Glass Freebie Competition!

Haven't got your copy of Falling Glass yet? Well your laziness/tightfistedness/lack of interest may have paid off. I have got one signed first edition copy of Falling Glass to give away to a reader of this blog! And if you've already bought a copy, firstly my starving children thank you but secondly as an added bonus I'm also going to include the first half dozen pages of the book I'm working on right now which is so secret even I don't know what the hell its about.

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Ok so it's a pretty easy competition. Falling Glass is the story of an Irish Traveller called Killian who is in the people finding business. In a deleted chapter I had Killian flashback to a birthday party he celebrated with another old character of mine Michael Forsythe. At an early stage the editor and I agreed that the chapter slowed the book down so I cut it. I don't think the chapter ever appeared anywhere, either in an ARC or even in an internal Serpents Tail galley; therefore the only people who know the date of Killian's birthday are the editor and me.

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This then is the question: What is Killian's birthday? It's going to have to be a pure guess - there's no way - I think - you could work it out from the novel. The person who gets closest to the actual date will win the book and the mystery manuscript. Please put your answers in the comments below along with some kind of contact info. The competition will close exactly 48 hours after the time and date stamp on this blog post. (Don't forget that's Melbourne time folks, i.e. 11 hours ahead of GMT).

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I will give you one clue. Killian's birthday is the feast day of a well known Saint. Not necessarily an Irish Saint. But not necessarily NOT an Irish Saint either.

Falling Glass - The First Review

From the great David Park in today's Irish Times:

CRIME: Falling Glass, By Adrian McKinty Serpent’s Tail, 309pp. £11.99

ALTHOUGH IT IS the Scandinavian star that currently shines brightest in the crime-fiction firmament, Ireland continues to publish an increasingly varied and successful body of work. The North alone has contributed a growing list of titles by writers such as Adrian McKinty, Eoin McNamee, Colin Bateman, Paul Charles, Brian McGilloway, Stuart Neville, Sam Miller and Ian Sansom. In David Torrans’s wonderful No Alibis Belfast has its own specialist bookstore that offers customers not only access to a wide selection of crime literature but also the chance to hear writers with international reputations read from their work.


What has prompted this flourishing remains something of a mystery in itself, but perhaps one of the inherent attractions of the genre is that in an unresolved world it offers the reader and society as a whole a sense of resolution, a final answer to all the unanswered questions. In some of the Northern writing there is also occasionally the sense that, either consciously or unconsciously, the crime story restores a new moral order to the nihilistic chaos of the past.


McKinty was born in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, and has lived and worked in the US, but currently resides in Australia. His latest novel, Falling Glass , follows on from his successful Dead trilogy and his most recent novel, Fifty Grand , which won the wonderfully titled 2010 Spinetingler Award in the rising-star category.


It tells the story of Killian, who was born into the Irish Traveller community, and who has carved a lucrative career on both sides of the Atlantic as an enforcer, a debt collector, someone who can be relied on to get the necessary results with the least possible mess. While no stranger to violence, and not averse to using it with deadly efficiency when necessary, Killian has developed a preference for resolving outstanding issues by the application of his intelligence and his lyrical gift with words. In a world steeped in machismo Killian “had gained a rep for diplomacy”, someone who “could convince people to pay their bills and keep their beaks shut without the necessity of having to shoot them in the kneecaps”.


However, Killian feels weary at the age of 40 and knows that in his own culture, with its reduced life expectancy, he is approaching a kind of old age. He tries to change his way of life and enters university to study architecture, but even premier-league enforcers are not immune to the effects of the recession, and when his purchase of two luxury Laganside apartments leaves him significantly out of pocket he is forced to offer his services for hire once more.


This leads to his taking on the job of finding the former wife and two children of Richard Coulter, a rich Irish businessman and owner of a budget airline, who are hiding somewhere in Northern Ireland. The half-million fee offered to Killian suggests there are darker reasons why Coulter wants them back, and his search uncovers not just a frightened and desperate woman but also a disturbing web of political and sexual corruption that encompasses all the North’s key players. Killian’s search is made all the more dangerous because Rachel Coulter and her daughters are also being pursued by a Russian hitman whose ruthlessness and skills make him a formidable opponent.


McKinty is a streetwise, energetic gunslinger of a writer, firing off volleys of sassy dialogue and explosive action that always delivers what it has promised the reader. The story is skilfully constructed, and the pace is always full throttle forwards. There is one violent scene in Mexico involving a chainsaw that is definitely not for the squeamish, but it would be unfair to think of the author as someone exclusively reliant on external action.

There is, for example, an interesting psychological exploration of Killian’s re-embracing of his half-forgotten roots and the cultural values of the Traveller community. Even the dark figure of Markov, the Russian hitman, gets layered and lightened with some psychological subtleties that are the product of his relationship with his partner, Marina, and experiences of the war in Chechnya that continue to haunt him.

McKinty zaps the story across countries and continents and, either through detailed research or personal experience, renders the locations convincingly. But the bulk of the story’s setting springs from his intimately observed landscape of the North. In the strongest and most impressive part of the novel McKinty blends the landscape of an island in Upper Lough Erne, insightful characterisation and narrative in a particularly creative way.

Despite the genre’s frequent reliance on [violent] resolution, McKinty’s teasing ending deliberately withholds that very thing from his reader, and you sense that Killian may have more stories unfolding ahead of him, and still more travelling across the world’s seas, before he’s finally allowed to disappear into retirement

...Holy Crap! If only all my reviews could be like this! Thank you David Park! Mr Park of course is a New York Times editorial writer and the author of "The Truth Commissioner" one of the greatest and most important novels about the Troubles.

All Killer No Filler. . . Falling Glass

My new crime novel Falling Glass is out this week. It's the story of Killian, an Irish Traveller, a finder of lost things and people, who is set on the trail of Rachel Coulter ex wife of Richard Coulter, owner of an upstart cheapie Irish airline (not unlike Ryan Air). Rachel has gone missing with Richard's two daughters and perhaps something else...
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There have been a few erroneous reports in the blogoverse that this is a Michael Forsythe novel. It is not. Forsythe is a character in the book and does make a cameo appearance but this is not his story. Parts of the book were based on a short piece I was going to write at one time called Scotchy Finn's Wake, which would have continued the pun of the last Michael Forsythe novel The Bloomsday Dead, but this is only a section of the novel. The emphasis is on Killian, Rachel Coulter and Richard Coulter as well as a few other crooks and ne'er do wells.
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If you're in the UK and Ireland the book is published by Serpents Tail and you should be able to get it in most bookshops as well as on Amazon.co.uk, right here. If you live in Australia or New Zealand the book will be published by Allen and Unwin in May or if you really can't wait you can also get it at Amazon.co.uk or the Book Depository. If you live in the US, it isn't available in the bookshops and it isn't on amazon.com yet so you'll have to get it from amazon.co.uk or the book depository. (That goes for the rest of the planet too) You can also get Falling Glass from the Serpents Tail website where they offer free worldwide shipping. (Just to thoroughly confuse you I think the E version is available at Amazon.com).
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Finally audio. The audio version of Falling Glass has been narrated by the wonderful Gerard Doyle and is available now on Audible.com or iTunes or direct from Blackstone Audio. That one you might also be able to get on Amazon.com.
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If you do get the book and you like it I would really appreciate it if you could give me a review on Amazon or Audible or Good Reads or your blog. I do try to read every single review I get, even the bad ones. I don't, like Liberace, cry all the way to the bank, but I do agree with Borges when he says "Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself. Perhaps I should advise would-be enemies to send me their grievances beforehand, with full assurance that they will receive my every aid and support. I have even secretly longed to write, under a pen name, a merciless tirade against myself."

For All You Budding Henry Higginses Out There

When I was a kid Northern Ireland was such an insular and static society that you could easily tell where someone was from by their accent. Where I grew up, Carrickfergus, I could spot someone from West Belfast, South Belfast, Larne, Ballymena etc. as soon as they opened their mouth even though these places are geographically only a few miles apart. It was also not difficult to spot someone from Derry, Armagh, North Down etc. Northern Ireland then had half a dozen regional accents and I was familiar with at least three different Scottish accents and maybe a dozen English ones. Society has gotten a lot more fluid since the 70's and 80's and regional accents have somewhat faded, but not completely.
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In this little clip legendary UTV newsman Julian Simmons shows how to change Northern Irish accents in the blink of an eye. At about 22 seconds in he switches from a South Belfast received pronunciation to a broad, camp West Belfast drawl. I dont know if anyone outside of Northern Ireland will notice the difference but it is quite striking.
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I dug this clip up because I mentioned Julian doing the recorded airport announcements at Belfast International Airport (which he used to do in the 80's) in my new novel Falling Glass. Gerard Doyle (the audiobook reader) wanted to do know what Simmons sounded like and hey presto the internet came to my rescue. Whether Doyle will be able to do both of Simmons's accents or even one of them remains to be seen, but his little preview for me on Skype was impressive.

George McFly Day

Can You Hear Me Now?

My audio book read at the moment is The 1000 Autumns of Jacob De Sloot by David Mitchell, which I've been listening to on my iPod on the bike or riding public transport. After a nauseating opening I'm really enjoying the book which is set in Nagasaki around 1800 and may be about to involve the Nagasaki Harbour Incident and HMS Phaeton. Or maybe not. I got the book from the St Kilda Public Library as an audio e book download which makes me feel a lot less guilty than getting it as a torrent. The audio e book process works very well and I've "checked it out" for a renewable three week period. Very cool.

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In other audio news I've learned that the great Blackstone Audio will be bringing out my new crime novel Falling Glass in an audio edition next year and also the first two books in my Lighthouse Trilogy: The Lighthouse Land and The Lighthouse Wars. You'll be able to get those books from iTunes or Audible.com or directly from Blackstone. Falling Glass and the Lighthouse books are going to be read by Gerard Doyle who has done most of my stuff. Ger and I had a skype conversation about how to pronounce certain words etc. in the kids series and I'm confident that he is going to do an excellent job as usual. He also told me a story about when he and his kid met Steven Spielberg that had me laughing my arse off.

Falling Glass Cover

Essay Crisis

I've got a new book coming out in March of next year called Falling Glass. It's a stand alone crime novel being published by Serpents Tail. The book isn't about Michael Forsythe but that sleekit wee character does have a fairly large cameo. Anyhoo, I mention this only because I got my editorial letter from Serpents Tail this week and its going to require about 10-12 days hard graft from me to edit the book, add a couple of scenes, take out all the libel and remove all the jokes (which, sadly, nobody else seems to like but me).
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With that in mind blog service will be limited for the next 10 days or so. I'll be posting some old (and hopefully good) stuff from the early days of the blog and although I will read your comments I probably wont be that great about replying. This isnt me being rude, just me trying to focus on doing a good job on Falling Glass.
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Thank you for understanding. Normal service will resume soon and I do think you'll enjoy the older blog stuff that you probably haven't seen before.
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BTW this is NOT the cover of the book, just me mucking about with paintbox, although it is thematically appropriate.