Pauline Rowson's Blog - Posts Tagged "isle-of-wight"

It was a pleasure to meet some existing readers and introduce my crime novels to new readers at the Isle of Wight Arts Festival at Ventnor on Sunday, and what a gorgeous day it was too, wall-to-wall sunshine with people flocking to the little beach in the small bay. I was just glad that some visitors managed to tear themselves away from the beach and the sunshine to come and listen to yours truly for an hour in the resplendent Royal Hotel, Ventnor.

It was a small group but they were delightful and I enjoyed talking to them and answering their questions about how I research and write my thrillers, and my marine mystery crime novels featuring my flawed and hunky detective DI Andy Horton.

The first Isle of Wight Festival this year featured many local artists and writers and star attractions, Edward Fox and Barry Norman. I hope it has been a success and runs again next year. I'd be delighted to return and thank you to the people of Ventnor and the visitors for making me so welcome.

For information on all my crime and thriller novels visit my web site http://www.rowmark.co.uk

Deadly Waters

Ideas for my crime novels, as I've said before, can come from anywhere: from an overheard conversation, from a story someone tells me, from a specific location, or from witnessing something such as the coastguard rescue. Sometimes ideas come from a newspaper article and this news item popped up into my Google feeder recently from the Isle of Wight County Press.

"A GANG of lobster fishermen conspired to smuggle 255 kilos of cocaine through the Island into England, a court heard. The haul, which is believed to have come from Brazil, was found floating in The Solent off the coast of the Island by another fisherman on May 31 last year.A jury at Kingston Crown Court heard Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) officers were posted on the IW, while others were watching from the coast of Hampshire."

The trial is continuing but the article certainly got the ideas flowing but then there is never a shortage of them where I live and where my crime novels are based, Portsmouth,UK) The Solent and the Isle of Wight.

Portsmouth ( DI Andy Horton's patch) is a thriving port and busy city, steeped in history and with a modern vibrant waterfront giving access to one of the busiest harbours in the World. Home to the Royal Navy and with the Isle of Wight and the Solent on its doorstep so there is always plenty going on, not all of it criminal I hasten to add. Ideas are the easy bit, it's turning them into a novel of 80,000 words that's tricky, but it's fascinating and fun.

Dead Man's Wharf

First up is a visit to the London Book Fair to meet my overseas agents, my editor and my publisher, Severn House. It's always great visiting the London Book Fair and catching up with all my friends and contacts in the publishing world.

Then there's the Crime Writers' Association (CWA) Conference which this year is taking place in Southampton. I'm delighted to have organised a visit by the Hampshire Police Marine Unit who will be talking about their real work in the Solent as opposed to the fictional marine unit in my DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime novels.

Then immediately afterwards there's the Isle of Wight Arts Festival at Ventnor where I will be meeting readers and signing copies of my crime and thrilller novels on Sunday 22 April.

Lots of photos to come from all these events, which will be posted here and on my web site at http://www.rowmark.co.uk

Details of all events are also on my website.

And in between I'll be cracking on with writing DI Andy Horton number nine.

A Killing Coast

On 22 April I will be at the Isle of Wight Arts Festival Writers Fair, signing copies of my DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime novels and my thrillers.

The Isle of Wight Writers Fair event is for book lovers. It features books written on the Island and books about the Island, as long as there is an Isle of Wight connection the book will be there. As readers of my crime novels know many of them include locations on the Isle of Wight as well as Portsmouth (DI Andy Horton's patch) and the Solent.

In the DI Horton series Blood on the Sand is set primarily on the Isle of Wight.

Inspector Andy Horton’s holiday peace is shattered when stepping out across an abandoned golf course on the Isle of Wight on a cold, grey January, he finds himself facing a distraught young woman with a gun in her hand leaning over a corpse in one of the discarded bunkers. When she professes to be the dead man’s sister and psychic, Horton’s old adversary, DCI Birch, is convinced she is mentally disturbed and the killer, but Horton is not so sure. Soon he is uncovering a web of intrigue that ripples down the years, and which someone is determined should never be revealed

A Killing Coast is partially set on the Island.

When a body is found floating in the sea off Portsmouth harbour, Detective Inspector Horton initially judges it to be an accidental death. Soon though, to his dismay, he discovers he’s got it very wrong. Accused of being incompetent by his boss, and with the head of the Major Crime Team coming down heavily on him, Horton wonders if he’s allowed his ongoing investigation into the disappearance of his mother over thirty years ago to cloud his judgement. With no clear motive for the murder, Horton is sucked into a baffling investigation that he is determined to resolve despite the odds. Not only does he need to find a brutal killer, but Horton now has to prove to himself, and others, that he is still up to the job.

In addition, my thriller In For The Kill is set on the Island.

Alex Albury has it all: a successful business, a luxurious house, wife and two sons. Then one September morning the police burst into his home and arrest him. Now, three and a half years later, newly released from Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight, Alex is intent on finding the man who framed him for fraud and embezzlement. All he knows is his name: James Andover. But who is he? Where is he? Alex embarks on his quest to track down Andover, but with the trail cold he is frustrated at every turn. Worse, he finds himself under suspicion by the police. The pressure is on and Alex has to unearth the answers and quick. But time is running out. For Alex the future looks bleak and soon he is left with the option - to kill or be killed.

The event takes place at Ventnor Masonic Hall, Grove Road, Ventnor, Isle of Wight. Free entry and refreshments available. I'll be there from 14.00 to 16.00.

For more information about the Isle of Wight Arts Festival visit www.artsisle.org

On Thursday 17 May I will be talking to David Nove on Angel Radio Isle of Wight, at 1pm.

I’ll be talking about my crime novels, writing, plotting and characters and the locations around the Solent area for my DI Horton marine mystery crime novels and my thrillers, In Cold Daylight and In For The Kill. Hope you can join us.

Angel Radio broadcasts on 91.5 fm and via the Internet. It is unique in that it specialises in records made before 1960. The station has a huge following across the ages and has listeners all over the World including Europe, Australia and the USA.

Footsteps on the Shore, the sixth in the DI Andy Horton series of marine based mystery crime novels set on the South Coast of England has been reprinted in paperback and is also available as an e book on Kindle, Nook and Kobo

Published by Severn House, Footsteps on the Shore has received critical acclaim in the USA. It was given a starred review by Booklist who said: "It deserves mention in the same breath as works in the upper echelon of American procedurals (those by Ed McBain or Joseph Wambaugh for example) and their British counterparts, including the work of Peter Robinson and John Harvey. Procedural fans who haven’t already read Rowson should be encouraged to do so in the strongest possible terms."

There are eight in the DI Andy Horton series of British police procedural novels with two having been published this year, A Killing Coast and Death Lies Beneath and the ninth, Undercurrent, to be published in January 2013. They are all set against the backdrop of the sea in the Solent area on the South Coast of England in Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

Footsteps on the Shore

I'm delighted to announce that the seventh in the DI Andy Horton crime series, A Killing Coast has been nominated by my publisher Severn House for the eDUNNIT AWARD at CrimeFest 2013.

Crimefest is an annual convention for crime fiction fans and draws top crime novelists, readers, editors, publishers and reviewers from around the world. It follows the format of US conventions of interviews, panels, a Gala Dinner, and one or two surprises. The event takes place at the Royal Marriot Hotel, Bristol from 30 May to 2 June 2013.

The eDunnit Award is for the best crime fiction ebook first published in both hardcopy and in electronic format in the British Isles in 2012.

I've appeared at Crimefest for the last three years and will again be appearing on a panel in 2013.

A Killing Coast is the seventh in the DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime series set in the Solent area on the South Coast of England. It was published by Severn House in the UK and the USA in 2012.

Death Lies Beneath, the eighth in the Horton series was also published in 2012.

A Killing Coast is also available as an e book.

The winning author receives a cash prize, an eReader and a commemorative vase provided by Bristol Blue Glass.

Undercurrent, the ninth in the series is published in hardcover in the UK in January 2013 and in the USA and as an ebook in May 2013.

For further information please visit my website at http://www.rowmark.co.uk



Death Lies Beneath

The new DI Andy Horton, number nine in the series, called Undercurrent, will be published in the UK and Commonwealth on 31 January and in the USA on 1 May 2013. Like all the DI Horton novels it is set against the backdrop of the sea in the Solent area on the South Coast of England.

In this crime novel DI Horton has a new mystery to solve as well as continuing with the search for the truth surrounding the disappearance of his mother over thirty years ago. Undercurrent is set in July around Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard, at Gunwharf Quays - which is renamed Oyster Quays in the Horton novels - and around Langstone Harbour.

Click here to see photographs of where Undercurrent was created and how DI Horton is sucked into another baffling and complex case.

Undercurrent

The fourth in the DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime series, Dead Man's Wharf,by Pauline Rowson,has been published in China by Nanhai Publishing Company of Haikou.

Nanhai Publishing bought translation rights to six novels in the DI Horton series published in the UK, Commonwealth and USA by Severn House. Deadly Waters, the second in the Horton series and The Suffocating Sea, the third in the series have recently been published in China and the remainder in the DI Horton series are to be published over the coming months.

Dead Man's Wharf

Horton and Cantelli are called to a nursing home where an elderly resident, suffering from dementia, claims she's been attacked by an intruder. Horton is ready to dismiss it as senile ramblings until he discovers that her room-mate has died, the dead woman's belongings are missing and her son, convicted for armed robbery, has been found dead in his cell. Coupled with a series of threatening telephone calls to a television personality, and a mother's conviction that her son's death on Christmas Eve was no accident, Horton finds he is caught up in a complex investigation that has far-reaching international implications. With the pressure on to find a killer, and hampered by his belief that his bosses are lying to him, Horton discovers that he's stepped into a web of intrigue, deception and corruption that stretches back into the past.

Dead Man's Wharf

Undercurrent,the ninth in the marine mystery crime series featuring the flawed and rugged detective DI Horton is now published in the UK and Commonwealth by Severn House. It will be published in the USA on 1 May 2013.

Set in the Solent area on the South Coast of England the DI Horton series has received critical acclaim both in the UK and the USA where they have been compared to the works of Ed McBain and Joseph Wambaugh, and their British counterparts Peter Robinson and John Harvey. Translation rights to the Horton series have recently been sold to China where they are being published in 2013.

American Reviewer Booklist says, "Andy Horton is an especially good series hero, a likeable fellow with plenty of street smarts and the requisite personal baggage – an abrasive supervisor and an antagonistic soon-to-be ex-wife. Procedural fans who haven’t already read Rowson should be encouraged to do so in the strongest possible terms."

Undercurrent

When naval historian Dr Douglas Spalding is found dead in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard, the Major Crime Team is adamant it is suicide. Detective Inspector Horton is not so sure. Then another body is found in similar circumstances and Horton is convinced they’re looking at murder; but not so his bosses. Angry and frustrated at the lack of investigation, Horton goes out on a limb to prove he’s right. Whichever way he turns, he finds the deaths have all the hallmarks of a cover up at the highest level, but who is behind it and why? Soon Horton begins to find disturbing similarities with his own private investigations into the disappearance of his mother thirty years ago. As he gets closer to the truth someone is determined to prevent it from ever being revealed, even if means death . . .

Undercurrent