Blog

I have “The Foot on the Crown” proof on my desk and am reading now. More to follow. Due out August this year.

I forgot to add this to the blog in December. So here it is now... @Peculiar was a huge admirer of Ballard and his dystopian work. He and I discussed how prophetic Ballard was with the Drowned World and the Burning World which were published in the 60s. Chris met his literary idol Ballard some years ago and unbelievably Chris said he was tongue tied for once in his life - quite a rare occurance I…

Happy new year! At long last I can unveil the new website we've been working on over the past six months. All of Chris's books are listed , together with: quotes from critics, links to reviews and options to purchase on Amazon. There are a number of options to sort the Bryant & May series including a recommended reading order for new readers. We've kept the blog archive for anyone who wants to…

I was asked by The Guardian to write about my reaction to reading Chris's book and what happened after his death.... My author spouse never let me read anything he wrote before it was finished. But after his death from cancer, I found myself choosing funeral flowers at the same time as covers for his memoir, Word Monkey It is strange to be married to an author. At least, it was to me. I inhabited…

By the way, back in May Chris won the Last Laugh Award at CrimeFest, the International Crime Festival convention, for Bryant and May's Peculiar London. Really! Chris would have been both delighted and amused at the irony... The Husband

Hurrah! I finally plucked up the courage to read my copy of Word Monkey at our favourite spot on the beach in Barcelona. It's taken me a long time to get to this point but I felt the time was right. It was a very emotional read, but it was so nice to 'hear' his voice on the page. I'm reminded of just how sharp his brain was despite Chris finishing it only two months before he died. So much…

A book is forever. In August 2008, I set up a blog with Simon Moore, the London creative art director I hugely respect, to cover books, films, the arts and - it turns out - to spark impromptu discussions about Britain's collapsing social fabric. OK, that part hadn't been planned but you could hardly avoid it. It was a bit like setting out to interview Melvyn Bragg and finding yourself stuck with…

Men On Ink When I was putting together the complete short stories (1984-now) my new young editor, who often looked worried, eyed the vast number of pages with trepidation. Some of the stories were nearly four decades old. 'There's nothing in these pages that's going to come back and bite me in the arse, is there?' he asked. I thought about it and decided that, perhaps beyond a couple of…

Kenneth Williams: 'Raining again, I see.' Tony Hancock: (After a considerable pause) 'Oh, so that's what's making the roads wet.' I felt less horrible than normal, I told myself this morning. Today was the day I'd go for a walk. Now, this is a big deal for me. The challenge starts when I leave the flat and negotiate two flights of stairs to reach the lift. But I had an incentive; there are dozens…

Captain's bridge here. Supply chain problems are causing gaps in your regular blog service, I'm afraid. Thanks to an unexpected downturn in productivity (inflammation of the liver requiring a complex new drug regime) three jokes a page are being rationed to two, the cost of sarcasm has risen prohibitively and a number of less familiar writers' tools like litotes and zeugma will be unavailable…