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I write police procedurals, or so I've been told.  But I don't really think of them as that. To me they are detective novels set against the atmospheric backdrop of the sea on the South Coast of England - marine mysteries they have been called, and the UK's answer to Wallender. I also write thrillers, which again are set on and around the sea.  So, writing police procedurals do I need to know how the police in the UK operate? The answer is yes. I need to  know a certain amount about police procedure, but if I described exactly how the police operate in my crime novels it would be so long and tedious, and with too many characters, that it would be deadly dull. So where do I get my information? From the horse's mouth i.e. police officers, and from newspapers and web sites.  One of my favourite web sites is Inspector Gadget written by a serving police inspector.  It attracts a huge number of comments from police officers and ...

Yes, I did a silly thing this morning.  I decided to walk over Culver Cliff on the Isle of Wight at 8 a.m directly into the eye of the storm, with gale force winds gusting at 60 m.p.h. and rain sweeping across the open countryside, like a giant hosepipe out of control.  I was only glad the direction of the wind meant I wasn't going to be blown off the edge of the cliff, my body to be dashed on the rocks below or to land with a thud on the sand and be swept out to sea in Sandown Bay.  But it was possible, I thought. It could happen to one of the characters in one of my marine mystery crime novels. Not that I really needed to experience the gales personally to write it, part of being a writer is using one's imagination.  And although it was uncomfortable in the storm - especially when the sand from the cliff blew into my eyes and has left my right eye feeling very gritty, so much so that I've had to pop to the chemist and get some eye drops for it -...

Researching for the new DI Andy Horton novel took me to the beautiful Isle of Wight today - any excuse to enjoy that lovely Island's walks. This will be the second novel set primarily on the Isle of Wight. In For The Kill, a stand-alone thriller is also set there, as well as in Portsmouth, Petersfield and Guernsey. In In For The Kill, Alex Albury, newly released from Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight, after serving a sentence for fraud and embezzlement, sets out to discover who framed him and in his quest for revenge finds himself being hunted by the police and a dangerous killer. It is a fast-paced, action packed thriller. This is a photo of Sandown Bay courtesy of http://www.isleofwight.com/ photo galleries. And it looked just like this today because lo and behold we had a summer's day at last! Yes, it's true there was a big, bright, round thing in the sky that, if I recall, is called the sun, and it shone. The beach was packed with holiday makers and day-trippers...

The difference between fictional crime and real crime is rather obvious. In fictional crime I get to solve the mystery, and bring the villain to justice. I can tidy things up or leave a few loose ends dangling to keep my readers coming back for more (hopefully). In real crime life is a lot messier and the bad guys don't always get caught, and certainly don't always get banged up, or if they do they can get released too early and do it all over again. Research is, of course, vital for any crime writer, but if I wrote a crime novel that genuinely reflected how the police operate no one would read it because it would be so tedious. I don't mean that the day in the life of a police officer is tedious, far from it, but that reflecting police procedure and police structure in its truest sense in a novel would bore my readers to tears - even police officers who read my crime novels tell me that! But if you want real life policing then I can't think of a better place to look...