Hello from a cold and rainy seaside, where the latest storm battered the coast all night. My flat faces onto the North Sea, so takes the full force of the wind, rattling the windows while the rain lashes down.
I’m been keeping snug inside, getting on with research for the next book and signing off the audiobook of The Riviera Mystery. I was thrilled with how beautifully my narrator Kim Bretton has read the story, despite all the difficulties I threw at her with French accents! You can find it now in Audible, and very soon on Spotify and the other platforms.
Read on for more about the work in progress, recommendations and promotions.
Book news
I’ve spent a lot of time in the British Library this month, trawling through the archives and reading up about one of my favourite parts of London: Soho.
I’ve already explored London’s ‘square mile of sin’ before, in The Soho Jazz Murders, and to some extent in my second thriller, The Peacock Room. But this time I’m looking at Soho’s more recent history, in the middle of the 20th century when it was first the centre of 1950s bohemianism, and then where the Swinging Sixties swung hardest.
What’s it about? Well, you might want to look at my recommendations below for some hints as to what’s on my mind!
Recommendations
With rain, storms and cold weather to contend with, I’ve spent more time than usual watching TV and listening to audiobooks.
I loved The Night Manager when it first aired ten years ago, with its glamorous locations and slippery treachery. At first I was unsure about the second series, which seemed to lack some of the bite of the first. But I was soon well and truly hooked, and the final episode didn’t disappoint.
Talking of slippery treachery, I’ve also been hooked on the BBC’s brilliant reality TV show The Traitors. It might be the best series yet. When crime writer Harriet Tyce seemed to have cracked the case, I thought she was going to win – but apparently she’s seen a huge increase in sales of her psychological thrillers, so I’m sure she’s happy anyway. And wasn’t that finale a nail-biter?
My final treacherous recommendation is for the audiobooks of John le Carré’s George Smiley series, narrated by the brilliant British actor Simon Russell Beale. Starting with Call for the Dead and continuing with The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, the series is grippingly believable. Le Carré was also the author of the book on which the first series of The Night Manager was based – I’m all about spies at the moment!