Visit my website at www.rowmark.co.uk for details of all my crime novels

Earthquakes, I am pleased to say, are rare occurrences in the UK, but apparently there was one yesterday and in the area where I happened to be, the Isle of Wight, and I never felt a thing. An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.9 on the Richter Scale struck in the middle of the English Channel on Thursday morning 60km south east of the Isle of Wight at about 7.59am, the time I was walking on the golden sands on a glorious sunny morning on Whitecliff Bay beach. According to reports, the British Geological Survey said the quake had a depth of 10km and its epicentre was around 60km south of the Isle of Wight. The British Geological Survey received at least ten reports from people on the Isle of Wight who felt the tremors: breakfast dishes rattled, computer monitors vibrated and windows shook but the earth never moved for me. More information is available at http://www.bgs.ac.uk/ where anyone who felt the tremor can fill in details on-line. Of course now I am wondering if...

This month sees the publication as an unabridged audio book of the fifth in the marine mystery series of police procedural crime novels featuring the flawed and rugged DI Andy Horton Blood on the Sand. Read by the experienced and accomplished actor, Gordon Griffin, Blood on the Sand is published by Isis Publishing and is available in cassette and CD format and as a download. Blood on the Sand is published in the UK and the USA by Severn House and has received rave reviews in the States. Reviewer Booklist says: 'This is another solid entry in a consistently well written series. Like Ed McBain, Rowson works many subtle variations on the procedural formula (including very interesting relationships between Andy and a couple of his superiors). A definite winner in the crowded field of British procedurals.' Set in the Solent area and the Isle of Wight, Blood on the Sand is already published in hardcover, trade paperback and mass market paperback. It will also be available i...

On Monday 9 May I've been invited to be the lunch time guest speaker at The Probus Club of Havant .  I'll be talking about the inspiration behind my DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime series and how I write my crime and thriller novels . Probus Membership is a professional club open to all men of any age who have partially or fully retired from professional or business activities. I'll be talking to an audience of forty and signing copies of my crime and thriller novels. Looking forward to it and hope to post some photos on here, my web site  and Facebook after the event. P.S I'll also be on air talking to Julian Clegg on the Julian Clegg Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Solent on 10 May at approximately 6.45 am about my latest book news and crime novels.

Next Tuesday, on 3 May, I will be on the Book Programme on PortsmouthLive TV talking to Sally Tickner about my DI Andy Horton crime novels , and the latest crime fiction books in the marine mystery series of police procedurals including Footsteps on the Shore , Blood on the Sand and Dead Man's Wharf .  Portsmouth is  DI Andy Horton's patch and the series is based around the south coast city of Portsmouth, the Solent area and the Isle of Wight. I've been on Portsmouth Live TV a couple of times and I'm looking forward to my chat with Sally on the book programme on Live at 5. Hope some of you can tune in at 5pm on 3 May - OK so it's not the Royal Wedding, which will have been and gone by then, and it might not be as gripping at Will's and Kate's performance but I'll do my best to make it entertaining. The week after, on Tuesday 10 May, I'll be on the Julian Clegg Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Solent at about 6.45 am. It's always a pleasure c...

I'll be on Angel Radio ,Isle of Wight today chatting to David Nove about my police procedural crime novels featuring the flawed and rugged DI Inspector Andy Horton and my stand alone thriller novels, In Cold Daylight and In For The Kill  between 12.00 and 1pm on 91.5 fm, or you can listen on line via the Angel Radio web site. Angel Radio  is a radio station for older people to run themselves providing entertainment and information specifically for an audience aged 60 years and over. No other radio station in Europe provides this all encompassing service for older people. It has listeners from all over the World including Europe, Australia and the USA. I hope some of you might be able to join us.

Well I do, and I am sure that many other authors do too.  I am now at the final stage of the DI Andy Horton marine mystery police procedural novel, number seven in the series, and I am checking the words and phrases and making sure that everything hangs together. This should take me probably one more week depending on other commitments then it will be off to my editor.  At this stage I get the feeling of relief mixed with anxiety: is it good enough? Should I re-write one more time? Could I have changed anything? Too late when I’ve pressed the send button and it’s gone to my editor. I also experience a sadness. I've lived with Andy Horton and Sergeant Cantelli, with alpha male, Superintendent Uckfield and the ice maiden, DCI Lorraine Bliss for well over six months and I'm sorry to leave them. Solution?  Start the next DI Andy Horton. The ideas are there and soon I'll be mapping out the plot lines and thinking about sub plots and with this stage...

I've been asked to give a talk to the U3A Sarum, Salisbury  group on 16 November at 10am about my crime novels and thrillers.   I'm always delighted to give talks and the U3A groups (University of Third Age)are fantastic audiences. It is a hugely popular organisation both in the UK and the USA. I gave a talk to the Waterlooville U3A in the summer last year and over 100 people attended and made me feel very welcome.  I am sure the Salisbury crowd will be as warm and friendly as the people at Waterlooville were. I will be entertaining the audience with a lively talk and question and answer session on what inspired me to write my thriller novels and to create the marine mystery series of police procedural crime novels featuring the flawed and rugged DI Andy Horton . For further information or if you'd like to attend please contact pat.read1@btintenet.com  or visit their website

Tickets are now on sale for my event at the exciting and vibrant Isle of Wight Festival in April . You can read about my event and other events taking place over the weekend of 15-17 April at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight on the website , but below is a taster. "Murder, treachery, deceit and betrayal set against the backdrop of the south coast and the Solent? It must be another case for DI Andy Horton . His creator, novelist Pauline Rowson, combines her fascination with mystery and adventure with a love of the sea and in doing so has created a whole new genre of crime fiction – the marine mystery. Her rugged and flawed hero from Portsmouth CID not only has complex and bloody crimes to solve, he has his demons to face from his own past and is battling for access to his daughter. Pauline will reveal what inspires her and how she researches and writes her novels at Isle of Arts on Sunday 17 April at 4pm ." For tickets visit the online box office: http://artsisle.org/tic...

I have spent most of the week working on revisions of the  DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel , number 7 seven in the series and today I will continue with it. I'm currently working on the last three chapters. Once this is done it will be back to the beginning again to ensure that the novel flows and all the clues are there, and they are if you look for them; it may be just a hint, a throw away line in a conversation, or something tucked in the middle of a list or in a dialogue, but clues and red herrings abound. I'll also be re-examining the characters, perhaps adding a little more colour to them, now that I know their motivations so well, and then ensuring that the novel has pace and the sequence of events is accurate taking into account the quirks of the characters and Andy Horton's constant desire to go off on his own and solve crimes his way and not his boss's way. There is a certain pleasure in going back over the novel, questioning each word and pa...

I read yesterday that an unpublished novel by Enid Blyton had been discovered in an archive more than 40 years after her death.  Like many people I was enthralled by Enid Blyton's Secret Seven and Famous Five series and it was Enid Blyton who inspired me to write my first novel aged 11.  I've no idea what happened to it.  I think my mum must have thrown it out, but who knows, one day it might be discovered in an attic somewhere.  If it is, somehow I don't think it will cause quite the same stir as the discovery of an unpublished Enid Blyton!  And neither will the discovery of several unpublished novels I have lurking in my cupboard.  For many years before creating my rugged and flawed detective DI Andy Horton and my crime thriller novels , I wrote historical sagas and a suspense novel.  And in my cupboard they will continue to lurk. I have no intention of resurrecting them and rewriting and editing them.  I class t...

My silence on my social network sites, on Facebook and Twitter, over the weekend was because I was hard at work finishing the second draft of the new DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel. I was at that tricky stage right at the end when I had to finally decide who the killer was and why. I'm pleased to say that it all came together nicely and I am happy with the outcome.  That doesn't mean to say the novel is complete though. The next stage is working through it again, making sure that all the facts are correct, the red herrings and clues are in place and the unanswered questions answered. Then it's reviewing the structure and examining the use of words and phrases. I also need to make sure that where Andy Horton leaves off in this novel in the search for the truth behind his mother's disappearance he can pick up in the next novel. And, yes, for those who ask, there is more on Andy's search for Jennifer Horton in this novel.

We knew it was coming and now it's here, the announcement of the next tranch of Waterstone's bookshops to close.  It's always sad news to a book lover, author and reader that a bookshop is to close and by the end of this week there will be eleven fewer in our towns and cities. The Waterstone's shops set to close are spread across the UK and Ireland and are mostly in locations where more than one Waterstone's store exists because some time ago Waterstone's bought up Ottakers creating two Waterstones in the same area. Staff at the affected Waterstone's stores have now entered into a period of consultation, but may be redeployed to other locations says Waterstone's. I hope they all find other jobs quickly. The HMV Group, which owns both HMV and Waterstone's, made the decision to shut stores after a tough trade performance over the Christmas period, but to my mind the writing was on the wall long before then. The book retailer has earmarked 20 sites ...

The new Inspector Andy Horton Marine Mystery Crime Novel , the sixth in the series, Footsteps on the Shore is set in the Solent area on the South Coast of England. Published today 27 January 2011, I thought I'd post some of the location photographs of where this Andy Horton novel is set. Footsteps on the Shore once again features the rugged Harley Davidson riding and sailing detective, Andy Horton, assisted by Sergeant Cantelli and often thwarted by his boss DCI Lorraine Bliss, and working with the head of the major crime team the coarse and blunt Detective Superintendent Uckfield. This novel is set in Portsmouth, around the historic shores of the Roman Fort Portchester Castle, the marina, which in the Horton novels is called Horsea Marina and on the Hayling Island Coastal Path. Horsea Marina (really Port Solent) featured in Footsteps on the Shore , Tide of Death and The Suffocating Sea The Roman Fort of Portchester Castle looking across Paulsgrove Lake from Hors...

This week, 27 January, sees the publication of the new Inspector Andy Horton Marine Mystery Crime Novel, the sixth in the series, set against the backdrop of the Solent on the South Coast of England - Footsteps on the Shore . Friday the thirteenth begins badly for DI Andy Horton when he wakes to find his Harley has been vandalized and his boss, DCI Lorraine Bliss, has returned early from her secondment to HQ. Then, convicted murderer, Luke Felton, released on licence, is reported missing and a decomposed corpse is washed up in Portsmouth harbour. But before Horton can get a grip on either case, he’s called to a house where a woman he’d only met the day before has been brutally murdered. Is missing Luke Felton the prime suspect, or is it his body in the mud of the harbour? Horton is under pressure to get results, but things are about to get much worse for the beleaguered detective … Footsteps on the Shore is published in hardcover by Severn House and is available from books...

Dead Man's Wharf and Blood on the Sand will be published as unabridged audio books this year and available as downloads, as well as in CD and cassette format. Not sure when exactly they will be published but I think Dead Man's Wharf is in the Spring and Blood on the Sand later in the year. You can probably check on Amazon. I'm really pleased about this because audio books are great for those who are visually impaired, for busy people on the move, and for those who simply like to relax and listen to a good read.  I'm also delighted that Gordon Griffin is reading them. He reads my other Inspector Horton audio books: Deadly Waters and The Suffocating Sea . In addition, Dead Man's Wharf is being published in Large Print on 24 February 2011. And don't forget the new Inspector Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel, Footsteps on the Shore is being published in hardcover in a week's time on 27 January 2011. You can pre-order all these titles onl...

After bashing away at the keyboard over Christmas and the New Year I decided it was time to get out in the fresh air and exercise the legs instead of the fingers.  Yesterday my husband and I took off for the Isle of Wight where many of you know that a couple of my crime novels are set. Blood on the Sand an Inspector Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel, is set on the Island and yesterday my husband and I had a picnic lunch by Bembridge Lagoons where Andy meets up with Detective Superintendent Uckfield while investigating the murder of Owen Carlsson. The sun even came out for us at this beautiful spot while we ate a baguette lunch. ( Not so in the novel it's pouring with rain) In For The Kill , one of my thrillers is also set on the Isle of Wight, around Bembridge and Brading, and the protagonist, Alex Albury, also travels to the mainland to Portsmouth and Petersfield and even to Guernsey to track down the man who framed him for fraud and embezzlement and destroye...

There are different types of writing when constructing a crime novel, (apart that is from having the idea, doing some research, and working it up into an outline plot with a smattering of characters).  First comes the freeflow type of writing when I'm eager to bring the idea and characters to life by getting words and actions on to my computer screen as quickly as possible. Often these are not the correct words, the description is hazy, the characters not fully formed, the grammar and punctuation incorrect but there is something there that can be shaped later. This is what I sometimes to refer to as the brain dump phase when I wish I could simply download words on to the computer without having to type them. The aim of this phase of writing, the first draft, is to get something written as quickly as possible. Second is the mixing or shaping phase when I go back through the novel (which might not yet be complete) and I move chapters or sections...

I was delighted yesterday, before the clock chimed midnight and 2011 was ushered in, to meet my self-imposed deadline of finishing the complete first draft of the Inspector Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel, number seven in the series.  All right, so I wasn't working until midnight, only until seven p.m. when I had to get changed for a dinner engagement but I was determined to get those last few critical chapters on to the computer. Now I can begin in earnest the next phase, that of the revisions, i.e. making sure that everything ties up and fleshing out the characters personalities and motivations - really looking forward to it. I'm working towards a deadline of having the novel completed by the end of March, so I guess that's my writing New Year's Resolution, that and to continue writing throughout 2011 so I'd better get on with it. Happy New Year!

It's been an interesting and productive 2010 and I've enjoyed writing and undertaking many speaking engagements and media appearances throughout the year. I've met some fascinating people and made lots of new friends. As 2010 draws to a close I thought it appropriate to thank my many readers, my publishers, booksellers, agents, those who have supported me in the book trade and the media, and in the libraries across the UK, the Commonwealth and the USA.  And of course I wish to thank my  friends and family for their unstinting support and encouragement.  Here is a quick round up and some of the highlights of 2010 which saw: • the publication of Blood on the Sand (number five in the DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime series) in hardcover and trade paperback with a great review from Eurocrime and Booklist in the States • the publication of Dead Man's Wharf (number four in the DI Andy Horton series) in trade paperback an...

Over seventy people attended the prize giving ceremony last night of the Wight Fair Writers Circle, Winter Short Story Writing Competition in Newport on the Isle of Wight.  Audience in waiting I was very honoured to be asked to  give a short talk at this wonderful event and to present the prizes to the adult category of the competition in the Castlehold Baptist Church and new reception rooms in Newport. I'm very grateful to Wightlink who generously sponsored my trip across to the Isle of Wight from the mainland at Portsmouth.  All proceeds from the competition, organised by Carol Bridgestock and the Wight Fair Writers Circle go to the Love Russia Charity, The Multiple Sclerosis Society and The Barely Born Appeal. Crime author Pauline Rowson giving a talk before the prize giving ceremony I was also delighted to sign copies of my novels, two of which are set on the Isle of Wight, a thriller In For The Kill and an I...