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The Book Depository , which already offers free worldwide shipping, is offering an extra 10% discount to Ireland-based buyers if they use a specific code when purchasing. The offer is also exclusive of VAT. The code is valid until 17th December so if you live in Ireland and want to save some money on those Christmas presents you'd better get cracking. The Book Depository also has some cracking offers on my crime novels and thrillers, and my sales and marketing books and not just to Ireland buyers.  I just had to get that plug in. Their prices are very keen and I've noticed there are some good reductions on my titles. And why are Ireland singled out for extra discounts you might ask?  Well, The Bookseller reported last week that the Irish book market has slumped by more than 16% in value and volume terms this year. For the year to 30th October, Nielsen BookScan figures revealed sales down by more than 16% to €103m. The country is currently facing an economic bailout ...

Yes, I’m back from a very pleasant visit to two libraries in the West Midlands where I met some very interesting people and had a good chat with them about how I write my marine mystery detective crime novels and thrillers, but I have to tell you that I committed a great sin while there. No, I didn’t rum amok naked and wailing through the centre of Burton-Upon-Trent or Perry Common in Birmingham – though that might have been interesting or sad, depending on your point of view, and it might well have got me in the newspaper headlines, although I did make it into the Staffordshire and local press – but I failed to visit the Marmite factory! Yes, I know, how , as a life-long lover of Marmite could I have possibly missed out on such a wonderful opportunity? (I need to have my fix every day on toast otherwise I suffer withdrawal symptoms). So, while I was in the actual town where the wonder product is produced you’d have thought I would have spared some time to worship its hallowed gro...

Having used up tons of scraps of paper (re-cycled from having to print off reams of previous manuscripts) and having almost worn my pencil down to a stub, not to mention making my office look like a waste paper tip, I am now a great deal happier with the plot of the next Andy Horton police procedural marine mystery crime novel , which will be number seven in the series. That doesn't mean to say that what I have mapped out will stay as it is, oh no, I could easily and most probably will change my mind by the end of the novel. Such is the life of a crime writer. As the characters become more alive so their motivations might suggest other actions. I might also delve into some research that will take me in another direction. It's all good fun, as they say. I want to try and get  as much of the first draft written as I can before having to work on copy edits and proofs of the sixth Andy Horton novel, Footsteps on the Shore , which my publisher tells me is due to be...

I visited Ventnor Library today, and for those of you who have no idea where Ventnor is it’s on the beautiful Isle of Wight (IOW), which is situated across the Solent from Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, where Inspector Horton of my marine mystery crime novels does his best to catch villains and make the streets a safer place for law abiding citizens.  And no, there wasn't a body in the library, at least not a dead one but lots of very lively people making use of the facilities including a group of children who were listening intently to a story being told them. The Isle of Wight features in one of my crime thriller novels, In For The Kill and in my new Inspector Horton, Blood on the Sand , which will be published by Severn House on 26 February 2010. And just in case anyone from Southampton or Lymington is reading this blog then I had better quickly add that the IOW is also situated across the Solent from both Southampton and Lymington. Anyway, to get ...

I received the large print edition of The Suffocating Sea , the third in the DI Andy Horton series of marine mystery crime novels last week, and it looks good. This will now be on sale on line or to order through bookshops and also available on loan through libraries. In addition, The Suffocating Sea is available as a talking book, which can be bought as a download or in cassette and CD format, or on loan through the library service. And, of course, it is in paperback and hardcover. "DI Horton is called to investigate a suspicious fire on board a boat, but as soon as he arrives at the marina he experiences a premonition so strong that it’s almost audible. As he views the charred remains of the dead man he knows instinctively that this investigation will be like no other, and he’s right. Soon Horton is forced to confront the past, not just the victim’ past, but the mystery surrounding his mother’s disappearance over thirty years ago. As the pieces of a long ago puzzle begin to...

I've been asked to write a post for a blog http://www.itsacrime.typepad.com/ on my pick of crime fiction for Christmas, which I will do shortly. And I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag here by saying which book. But thinking about the book to choose out of the many I have read and re read this year brings me back to the Golden Age of Crime fiction, which seems to have stimulated a fair bit of debate and response on this blog and by e mail. So I thought it worth mentioning here another strange little gem with a lovely title that I'd like to pinch for one of my marine mysteries, and, aptly enough, the action in this novel takes place on water, not the sea but the Norfolk Broads. It's called Death Under Sail and it's by C.P. Snow. Now you wouldn't have thought an eminent scientist like Sir Charles Snow who penned masterpieces such as The Masters , The New Men and The Affair would have written a detective novel but he did. It was his first published nove...