Middle age, cookie jars, and turning to a life of crime...

I’ve always written.

But it took me years to settle on the kind of stuff I really wanted to write.

In the beginning my writing was all over the place. It had no theme. No personality. No individuality. No voice it could call its own. I had a voice that invariably belonged to someone else.

Those were the years of writing advertising copy. Of writing words about things that other people wanted to make, or buy, or sell. Words about offering services that other people wanted to propose, or provide, or suggest.

I enjoyed those years…but I always felt that the cookie jar was less full than it should be. And the cookies were not as tasty as they used to be.

Then I hit middle age, and I realised that the only copy I liked (to write and to read) was the kind that contained globules of fact, with a dollop of truth, and a serious helping of imagination. All wrapped up in a damned good story.

And that’s when I stopped writing advertising copy and started writing books.

Fiction, to be precise.Genre fiction to be even more specific.Humorous, romantic, political, fantasy, genre fiction.

And I self-published the hell out of them.

But there was one kind of genre fiction that felt like an itch I couldn’t scratch. The kind of itch that only a proper publisher could scratch.

That’s when I turned it a life of crime.

That’s when I joined forces with my brilliant publisher Northodox Press. And that’s when they published my stunning debut crime fiction novel, A Time for Dying.

It’s the first in my DI Tom McHale series about a highly unusual (and very effective) team of serial killer hunters.

It hit the shelves just before last Christmas.

Of course, in true series fashion, it was followed up by the sequel A House for Monsters, which will hit the shelves next February. In fact, you can PRE-ORDER it right now.

Both are available from Northodox Press…and also from Amazon, Waterstones, and all good bookshops.

If you pull your finger out, you can curl up with A Time for Dying before Christmas, and A House for Monsters in the New Year.

It would be a crime not to…