Monthly Archives: June 2021

Serendipity plays a large part in finding inspiration I’m thinking of starting another book, and to do so I’m going through the hunter/gatherer process that always occurs at this stage. It’s complicated and works differently every time, but part of it involves churning through the work of many writers and thinking about the way they […]

Let’s have one last blast of misery, stupidity and hypocrisy from the press clippings file. These were culled from the national press during the writing of my collection ‘Red Gloves’, and no doubt influenced the extreme bleakness of the ‘Home’ volume (it has two volumes, Tales from Home and Tales from Abroad, which is generally more upbeat). […]

  A lovely book discussion from members of the online crime fiction festival Hull Noir, feat. the superlative dame noir Cathi Unsworth, author of the knockout Bad Penny Blues, here banging on about Bryant & May…

Has He Reached ‘National Treasure’ Status? They always say it about Alan Bennett, although his field of interest, outside of his wonderful diaries and his fascination with Kafka, eventually returned to being more parochial. Mr Jonathan Coe is another matter entirely. He eschews intellectual chilliness at the risk of being excluded from the so-called literary […]

As the very first copies of the new Bryant & May novel start to go out, I know I’m about to face a few questions. The very first is going to be, what happens now? Here’s the state of play.  Intimation of mortality concentrates the mind wonderfully, so I’ve been very busy. Pre-pandemic, I set […]

‘Sensible Thinking’ Friends working in media spent a decade keeping Fox News out of the UK. They did it not because they were politically opposed to the channel’s views but because it stoked fear in the vulnerable for ratings. The arrival of Andrew Neil’s GB News, a US-style news opinion channel partly funded out of […]

This just arrived at Fowler Towers. I am beyond excited. It’s out July 22nd. There WILL be signed first edition giveaways. As you were.

Short stories are not making a comeback, they’re still unpopular, but being a great fan of all things unpopular I still write them. A few years ago I wrote this amuse-bouche, and have since discovered that there may be more of a back-story to it than I realised. I’ve added a postscript.          The Scent […]

To the Victoria & Albert museum for their highly praised ‘Alice in Wonderland’ exhibition, I decide that if anyone can do it the V&A can. These days it is a money-making concern with more rapacious officers than the East India Company, but they put on a great show. A confession; it is not a favourite […]

Blast From The Past Back in a Soho studio today for the first time in ages – subterranean, chilly, scruffy and a bit wonderful – for a radio show about books and old Soho with producer/writer Des Burkinshaw, who also whipped up a terrific theme for an imagined Bryant & May series. I’d forgotten how […]