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I'm speaking at two libraries in the West Midlands later this month and looking forward to meeting existing readers of my crime novels and introducing my novels to new readers. Here is where I will be.  Hope some of you can come along. 27 September 2010 - 2.30pm Perry Common Library, Birmingham Join me at the newly refurbished Perry Common Library, in Birmingham to hear me talk about my marine mystery police procedural crime novels set in the Solent area on the south coast of England. Tickets are free. Contact Perry Common Library College Road, Birmingham West Midlands,UK B44 0HH perry.common.library@birmingham.gov.uk Following this on: 28 September 2010 - 10am Burton on Trent Library I'll be guest author in the Reading Cafe at Burton on Trent Library on 28 September from 10 am to 12 noon. Join me for an informal chat and question and answer session. For further information contact: Tel: 01283 239564 mailto:paul.tovell@staffordshire.gov.uk  http://w...

Lee-on-the-Solent Library is my destination this afternoon to give a talk about my marine mystery crime novels and my life as a writer. It's a lovely little place with a High Street set just off the seafront. I'll be able to gaze across the Solent, which of course, is Inspector Andy Horton's patch, to the Isle of Wight beyond, getting a view of the western part of the Island and Cowes - a different view of the Island compared to that seen from Portsmouth and Hayling Island where we look across to Ryde and the eastern reaches of Bembridge. I haven't featured Lee in my crime novels, but there's time yet.  The Andy Horton I am currently writing, ( number six) is coming along a treat.  It's a shame though that the World's biggest liner has sailed.  It was anchored off Lee-on-the Solent (and not Southampton as the Daily Telegraph reported). The Oasis of the Seas is longer than four football pitches and cost £800m. The 6,296-passenger Oasis of the Seas dropp...

I have just finished going through the copy-edit proofs for DEAD MAN'S WHARF, the new DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel due to be published in hardback on 29 April 2009. There weren't any revisions to the manuscript thank goodness and only a few small alterations but this is a task that I am not overly fond of. Why? Because I have an irresistible urge to keep changing what I have written. I always think I could improve a word here, a sentence or a paragraph there, but this is often because I am over-critical of what I have written. Now I have pressed the send button and it is back on my editor's desk with my fingers crossed that I don't have to go through it again. I'm looking forward to seeing the jacket cover design soon. The fifth DI Andy Horton Marine Mystery I'm also on the third revisions of the following DI Andy Horton marine mystery, which will be the fifth in the series and I have to say it is coming along a treat. Even I think it is a cracking ...

I’m giving a talk tomorrow at Bracknell Library in Berkshire, Hampshire, and I am looking forward to it. It is always good to connect with people, and at these types of events to discuss books (not only mine but other writers) and to discover what people like and why they like them. It also helps to provide me with ideas for possible future books, plays and screenplays. And it reminds me who my audience are i.e. who I am writing for and why I write. So what has this got to do with how writers see themselves? Bear with me. In my previous career, before becoming a full time writer, I ran my own marketing and training consultancy. I used to advise businesses and the public sector on their marketing strategies and devise marketing and PR campaigns for them as well giving seminars, presentations and talks at conferences on a variety of topics from understanding motivation and personalities, to marketing, selling, communicating and leadership. I have always enjoyed public speaking and enter...

I have just returned from giving a talk to a local reading group- the Denmead Reading Circle. It was their fourth anniversary of meeting and they wanted to mark it with the visit of a 'live' author. Think I qualify on those grounds - though sometimes I'm not so sure about the 'live' bit. They were a lovely and lively group of women (sadly their only male member had recently left to go into a nursing home). It was a pleasure to meet them. I talked about how I write and read the prologue of In For The Kill before I signed copies of my books. Many of them had read some of my novels and had enjoyed them, which obviously delighted me. And many had husbands, children and grandchildren who had also read and enjoyed my novels, which is great. I don't think they were just being kind! They presented me with some lovely flowers as a 'thank you'. And I would like to say 'thank you' to Denmead Reading Circle for inviting me. It was a pleasure to meet y...