Pauline Rowson's Blog, page 26

What's on in December 2017

December features extracts from two Inspector Andy Horton Christmas crime novels, Fatal Catch and The Suffocating Sea, a look back at Pauline Rowson's interviews, talks and events over the year and a roundup of her crime novels published in 2017.




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Did you know? Uncovering another fascinating fact on Lost Voyage

While researching for the third Art Marvik mystery, Lost Voyage, I discovered quite a lot about the ship recycling business. In Lost Voyage, the Mary Jo, a salvage tug, went missing in 2003 on its way to Newfoundland where it was to tow an obsolete Russian cruise ship back to Britain for recycling. Some decades later, in the present day, someone claims to have found the Mary Jo locked in the Arctic ice, it is a claim that sparks a series of murders. Marvik’s mission for the UK’s National Intelligence Marine Squad (NIMS) is to discover the secret of the Mary Jo and find a ruthless assassin who has embarked on a slaying spree to prevent it from ever being revealed.




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Read an extract from Lost Voyage the new Art Marvik marine mystery

Lost
Voyage, number three in the series featuring former Royal Commando, Art
Marvik, now an undercover investigator with the UK's National
Intelligence Marine Squad, is published by Severn House and is available
in hardcover and as an ebook.




Read an extract from Lost Voyage

Choosing names for your characters in fiction writing

Getting the right name for characters in a novel can be a tricky business. Sometimes they come to me completely out of the blue as I am creating a character, other times I will struggle to find the name that best suits the character.



I have always had this thing that people should look like their names. When someone is introduced to me I will think yes, you are a Jacqueline or a Malcolm. Other times I will think, oh no, you're definitely a Karen or a Wayne. And so it is with the characters I am creating. The name has to fit. If it's not right then the character isn't right. The name also needs to fit with the age and nationality although you can have exceptions.




So where do I get names from?

Did you know? Uncovering fascinating facts on Lost Voyage

While researching for the third Art Marvik mystery, Lost Voyage, I discovered quite a lot about the ship recycling business.



In Lost Voyage, the Mary Jo, a salvage tug, went missing in 2003 on its way to Newfoundland where it was to tow an obsolete Russian cruise ship back to Britain for recycling. Some decades later, in the present day, someone claims to have found the Mary Jo locked in the Arctic ice, it is a claim that sparks a series of murders and Marvik’s mission for the UK’s National Intelligence Marine Squad (NIMS) is to discover the secret of the Mary Jo and find a ruthless assassin who has embarked on a slaying spree to prevent it from ever being revealed.




Read this fascinating fact

Read an extract from Lost Voyage the new Art Marvik mystery

Read an Extract from the Art Marvik Mystery, Lost Voyage, number three in the series by Pauline Rowson published by Severn House. LOST VOYAGE by Pauline Rowson is out now in the UK and published in eBook, and in hardback in the USA, on 1 November 2017.




Read an extract from Lost Voyage a Marvik Mystery

Location map - Inspector Andy Horton's Patch

I have often been asked for a map showing the location of the various Inspector Andy Horton police procedural crime novels. Well at last here it is courtesy of Google Maps! Click on the markers to see where each of the Inspector Andy Horton novels are set and a book description and jacket cover will pop up.



It's been fun creating it. I hope you have fun viewing it. Do let me know if you have any comments or suggestions to make to add or improve it.




View the map

The story behind Art Marvik Mystery, Lost Voyage, by Pauline Rowson

How do you find a ghost ship once the trail has gone cold? And how do you locate it if it has been lost in the frozen seas of the Arctic? These were two questions that sparked the idea for the third in the Art Marvik mystery series, Lost Voyage. It also fitted neatly with the fact that Marvik’s late father, Dan Coulter, was a renowned oceanographer with a special interest in the Arctic and it had been the Arctic where he had met Marvik’s mother, Eerika, a marine archaeologist while working on a joint expedition with Norway in 1989.



I decided to conduct further research, desk bound I hasten to add rather than physically embarking on an expedition to the Arctic. I’ll leave the tough stuff to my fictional characters.




Read more about the story behind the Art Marvik Mystery, Lost Voyage by Pauline Rowson

What's on in November 2017

November kicks off with the publication in the USA in hardback and the worldwide publication of the ebook of LOST VOYAGE, the third in the Art Marvik marine mystery series. LOST VOYAGE is already published in the UK. Also in November, two talks to the Women's Institute plus I'm continuing to research and write my new crime novel set in 1950.




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How does listening to your books compare to the reading experience?

Pauline Rowson talks to Soundings who have just released the audio book of Inspector Andy Horton crime novel, Death Surge, number ten in the DI Andy Horton crime series.




How does listening to your books compare to the reading experience?

I have to admit that I cannot listen to my books. I usually manage the first few words and that’s it. Why? Because I am thinking maybe I should have changed that word or sentence or that particular piece of dialogue. I am highly critical and once a book is published in whatever format I find it very hard to look at it again and even harder to listen to it despite the fact that the narrator has done a fantastic job.




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