Pauline Rowson's Blog, page 60

Bello, Pan Macmillan, to sponsor CSI Portsmouth 8 November 2014

I'm delighted to announce that Publisher, Bello, Pan Macmillan’s digital imprint is to sponsor CSI Portsmouth 2014

CSI Portsmouth brings together bestselling crime authors, police, crime and forensic experts to debate crime fiction versus crime fact in two panels during this one day annual event.

CSI Portsmouth 2014 is taking place on Saturday 8 November 2014 at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard

Tickets go on sale on 29 September and cost £12.00 for the day. A real bargain. If this year is anything like last year's event then tickets will sell out fast. The panel guests, which include top crime authors, forensic experts and detectives from Hampshire Police will be announced in July.

An imprint of Pan Macmillan, Bello brings lost classics back to life. Over 50% of Bello’s published titles are in the crime genre, ranging from Golden Age mysteries and short stories, to thrillers, cozy crime and detective fiction. Bello’s extensive list covers the history of the genre, including two founding members of the Crime Writers’ Association, Andrew Garve and Josephine Bell, the early novels of popular children’s author Nina Bawden, the creator of the ‘inverted mystery’ Roy Vickers, and the bestselling Ann Cleeves, creator of the Vera and Shetland series.

CSI Portsmouth was first launched in 2010 and is organised by me and Portsmouth City Council Library Service. It is part of Portsmouth BookFest and is now one of the major fixtures in the UK crime fiction festival calendar.

Along with the panel guests there will be a mock up crime scene provided by forensic students from South Downs College; the fingerprint bureau from Hampshire Police and a forensic entomology display provided by the Institute for Criminal Justice Studies, Portsmouth University. The bookshop will be provided by the Hayling Island Bookshop.

CSI Portsmouth is a hugely popular event which regularly attracts an audience of over a hundred and thirty. It provides a fascinating insight into crime, both fiction and fact, and gives the audience the chance to ask questions of the panel and talk to the individual crime authors, police and experts.’

Bello books can be purchased from http://www.panmacmillan.com/bello.

Crime authors who have appeared at CSI Portsmouth include: Mark Billingham, Simon Brett, Stephen Booth, S J Bolton, Ann Cleeves, NJ Cooper, Graham Hurley, John Harvey, Matt Hilton, June Hampson, Kerry Wilkinson, Michael Ridpath, Peter Lovesey, and Pauline Rowson.

Crime experts have included members from Hampshire police major crime team, fire investigation officers, scene of crime officers, hi-tech unit, drug squad, fingerprint bureau, as well as experts on forensic toxicology, and from the Universities of Portsmouth and Surrey on fraud, stalking, forensic psychology.

A lively and friendly audience for tales of criminality at Ringwood U3A

On Thursday 19 June I had the pleasure of speaking to members of a very friendly and welcoming U3a at Ringwood. Ringwood is an historic market town in Hampshire located on the River Avon, on the western edge of the New Forest. It’s situated between Southampton and Bournemouth.

Apparently Ringwood had a long history of a thriving hand knitting industry. (I knew I should have taken my knitting with me). It became famous for its "Ringwood" woollen gloves, which were knitted in either cotton or wool 4 ply, and on fairly thick needles. Ringwood gloves were knitted commercially until after the Second World War.

But it wasn’t to talk about knitting that I was there but about my crime novels.

I entertained members of the audience with tales of the dogged Portsmouth cop, DI Andy Horton and explained how I plot, research and write the DI Andy Horton series and my other crime novels all of which are set on the South Coast of England, in Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

I talked about the inspiration behind the Horton novels and my two standalone crime novels, In Cold Daylight and In For The Kill. After the talk there followed, as usual, a very lively Q & A session and a book signing.

I give a number of talks around the UK to many different organisations. I will be appearing at Worthing Library on 28 June and Lymington Library on 16 July.

For all my forthcoming speaking engagements or to book me as a speaker visit the Events Page on my website

U3As are self-help, self-managed lifelong learning co-operatives for older people no longer in full time work, providing opportunities for their members to share learning experiences in a wide range of interest groups and to pursue learning not for qualifications, but for fun.

Shroud of Evil

Deadly Waters, a DI Andy Horton crime novel, on special offer on Kindle for limited period only

My crime novels have been chosen to be featured in special sizzling summer promotions this year with June kicking off with a great offer on Kindle, Deadly Waters, the second in the DI Andy Horton series

Deadly Waters is in a Kindle promotion in both the UK and the USA. It is priced at £1.99 and $3.34 respectively and the offer ends on 30 June.

Deadly Waters is the second in the DI Horton series of currently eleven. They are set in the Solent on the South Coast of England in Portsmouth and have received critical acclaim in the UK, USA and the Commonwealth.

"Rowson adds an appealing hero to the British Police Procedural ranks." Kirkus Reviews (USA)

"A very entertaining police procedural, with finely detailed characters and an intricate plot that should keep you guessing until the end." Amazon (USA)

A woman, the head teacher of a struggling local school, is found brutally murdered in Langstone Harbour along with a note found on the victim, Have you forgotten ME? Is it simply a senseless murder by an unhinged killer or does someone close to the head have a motive for murder? As Horton delves deeper into the investigation, aided by Sergeant Cantelli, the tension mounts. With the clock ticking Horton is soon forced to take a decision that will put his life on the line . . .

Deadly Waters (DI Andy Horton Mystery 2): A Marine Mystery Crime Novel Featuring DI Horton

Shroud of Evil, the new DI Andy Horton, Video Book Trailer

How far would you go to protect a secret? Would you risk your job for it, your friends your family? Would you kill for it?

The story behind the latest DI Andy Horton crime novel, Shroud of Evil number eleven in the series, explores the corrosiveness of secrets. It plunges the flawed and rugged detective,Andy Horton, into a complex murder investigation in which he is forced to withhold vital information because of his own secret and his fear of exposure, even though he knows that in doing so he is putting his professional career on the line.

What drives people to keep secrets? Is it out of shame, from fear, or guilt? Is it for safety and security? For the protection of oneself or of others? Is it to preserve a way of life, or for sanity or vanity?

In Shroud of Evil there are many secrets. Withholding a secret can hurt, so can revealing it. For Horton revealing his quest to uncover the truth of his mother’s disappearance means exposing his emotions, something he’s learned the hard way never to do because it would make him vulnerable and vulnerability is there to be exploited by others.

Secrets can be kept for years, as they have been by those involved in the murder investigation in Shroud of Evil but it is one person’s determination to expose a secret and exploit it for his own gain that rips apart the fabric of many lives. And once a secret is exposed nothing is ever the same again.

Read the full article on my website blog

Watch the Video Book Trailer for Shroud of Evil

Shroud of Evil

Lovely audience at Bognor Regis Library

Had a great time talking to the audience at Bognor Regis Library on 20 May. They were a lovely friendly group of people and I was delighted to meet many die hard DI Andy Horton fans.

If you haven’t tried the DI Andy Horton novels yet, there are currently eleven in the Horton series, with the latest, Shroud of Evil published in April 2014 in the UK and in August 2014 in the USA.

They are set in the Solent area on the South Coast of England, primarily in Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. I've also written two stand alone crime novels, In For The Kill and In Cold Daylight.

US Reviewer Booklist has compared them to the novels of Ed McBain and Joseph Wambaugh and their British counterparts, John Harvey and Peter Robinson.

My next speaking engagement is to members of Solent U3A on 11 June.

You can read about all my crime novels and view my diary of speaking engagements on my website at http://www.rowmark.co.uk

Shroud of Evil

What's good about crime at Crimefest 2014

My panel appearance at CrimeFest 2014 was on Friday 15 May at 17.10 and the last panel of the day. Beforehand I spent some time catching up with some of my fellow crime writers and my publisher before taking tea and a delicious slice of Bara Brith Cake in the cafe in Bristol Library where I chatted to the librarians, delighted to hear that my crime novels are very popular with their readers.

Bara Brith is a traditional welsh fruit loaf made with tea, produced all over Wales,and is delicious especially when spread with salted Welsh butter. After fortifying myself in the library cafe it was time to head for the Green Room in the hotel in preparation for the panel.

Here I met up with my fellow panelists: Felix Francis, Elizabeth Haynes, Lesley Thomson and Chris Longmuir. I briefed the panel about the format and before we knew it we were on stage.

I was acting as participating moderator, so I got to ask the questions. The title of the panel was, 'So what's good about crime?' We discussed how and why we got into crime writing, the importance of authenticity in our novels, the entertainment value of reading a good mystery and how our own experiences have influenced our writing. They were a fantastic panel and audience.

CrimeFest continued on the Saturday with more panels,and a gala dinner but I was only able to attend on the Friday. It was an enjoyable event and great to meet many crime fiction fans who had travelled not only from other parts of Britain to be there but from as far afield as Canada, America and Australia.

CrimeFest 2015 takes place from 14-17 May 2015.

If you like crime fiction and crime fact then you'll love CSI Portsmouth, an annual one day event I help to organise where best selling crime authors meet police, forensic and crime experts in two panel debates during the day.

CSI Portsmouth 2014 - 8 November 2014 - National Museum of the Royal Navy - Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Tickets on sale 29 September 2014. More details on my website at http://www.rowmark.co.uk

Lots of library talks lined up for 2014

Three more speaking engagements in libraries have been added to my calendar of events for 2014 which means that I will be speaking and meeting lots of readers in libraries around the UK.

I’m delighted to have been asked to speak to readers at Bognor Regis, Worthing, Lymington, Yate and Weymouth Libraries about the flawed and rugged hero DI Andy Horton and how I write my crime novels.

I'll be at Bognor Regis Library on 20 May at 7pm and Lymington Library on 16 July at 7pm.

I'll be at Worthing Library during Crime Writing Month, an initiative from the Crime Writers' Association of Great Britain, on 28 June 2014 from 2.30pm - 4pm. I'll be talking about the inspiration behind my crime novels and the craft of crime writing.

Then I’ll be at Yate Library on 22 September at 7.30pm and at Weymouth Library on 22 October at 2pm.

All my talks are followed by a comprehensive Q & A session and book signing.

In addition to library talks I'll also be speaking at a number of U3As around the country. You can see all my speaking engagements for 2014 and 2015 on the Events Page of my website at http://www.rowmark.co.uk

What's on in May

In May I'll be appearing at Crimefest. I'll be on a panel on Friday 16 May with fellow crime authors Elizabeth Haynes, Chris Longmuir, Lesley Thomson and Felix Francis entitled "What’s So Good About Crime?" It will be held between 17.10 and 18.00. CrimeFest takes place at the Bristol Royal Marriott Hotel from 15 - 18 May 2014.

Then on Tuesday 20 May I will be entertaining the audience at Bognor Regis Library talking about the inspiration behind my crime novels and how I research, plot and write them. Tickets from Bognor Regis Library, London Rd, Bognor Regis PO21 1DE Telephone 01243 864638.

Apart from that I am putting finishing touches to the first draft of the new crime novel, the first in a new crime series before returning to work on DI Andy Horton number twelve in the series.

Meanwhile DI Andy Horton is now on the streets of Portsmouth and crossing the Solent to solve another crime in the latest in the series. Shroud of Evil was published on 30 April in the UK and Commonwealth ( it will be published in the USA on 1 August 2014).

In Shroud of Evil DI Andy Horton is assigned the case of a missing person: Jasper Kenton, a private investigator. When Kenton’s car turns up,and a shocking discovery is made, Horton soon finds himself embroiled in an investigation that has major personal ramifications, and one in which he has no choice but to withhold vital information. As he struggles to crack the case, he knows it is only a question of time before someone discovers he’s kept silent, and when that’s revealed,his part in hindering a major investigation will end his career . . .

Shroud of Evil: An Andy Horton Missing Persons Police Procedural

The story behind the detective - DI Andy Horton

The inspiration for Death Surge, DI Andy Horton (10) came like all the other novels in the series featuring the flawed and rugged detective from the location. It is locations that inspire me and with the Horton series, set against the powerfully evocative British marine landscape of the Solent on the South Coast of England, there is always a good place to put a body.

Placing the crime novels against the backdrop of the sea has many advantages. The sea is never constant. In one day it can change from being calm to turbulent. It is also dangerous, misleading and evil like many villains, and although it can look safe beneath can be a sandbank, a rock, a wreck, a dangerous current all of which can cause havoc and kill, and be used to good effect in a crime novel. It also provides a great backdrop for pace and great settings for a climax, which, of course, I’ve used in Death Surge.

The sea is also completely uncontrollable. No matter how much you think or wish you can control it, you can't, you need to respect it. In life sometimes you need to go with the flow and other times swim against the tide, the trick is knowing when to do which. My detective, Andy Horton, hasn't quite got it sussed, or when he thinks he has something happens to throw him completely off course, just as in life.

Death Surge begins with Andy sailing off the Isle of Wight on the yacht on which he lives. He’s trying to find inner peace after a gruelling investigation which has left him questioning his desire to remain in the job. His ongoing conflict with his nit-picking, control-freak, Alpha female boss DCI Lorraine Bliss doesn’t help matters either. He’s also seeking to escape the mental torment that is being caused by the startling revelations his own private investigations are revealing into the disappearance of his mother when he was ten, just over thirty years ago. A call from Sergeant Cantelli in CID, Horton’s most revered friend, to say that his nephew is missing brings Horton straight back without question.

I like heroes, on screen, reading about them and in real life so when I created DI Andy Horton I knew he had to be that. My husband is a former fire fighter and DI Andy Horton is modelled on a combination of many fire fighters I’ve met in the course of my husband’s career. And in Death Surge as in some of the other Horton novels I’ve drawn on my husband’s knowledge of fires and charred bodies.

Horton is an action man, fit, good looking and with a strong sense of justice. But of course there’s more to the Harley Davidson riding detective, physically strong he may be but he’s also emotionally vulnerable. Abandoned by his mother he’s been raised in a succession of children’s homes, growing up on the rough streets of Portsmouth, surviving on his wits – and with his fists. He knows the dark, seedy recesses of his home city – which he hates and loves in equal measure.

He seeks justice and doesn’t much care how he gets it, just as long as the villains get done. But his childhood has made him psychologically vulnerable and that flaw allows us to penetrate his masculine armoury. Andy is a loner. He doesn’t want to be though, he has a desperate desire to belong but he’s afraid of letting anyone get too close for fear of being hurt and rejected. As a result he always finds himself on the outside. Estranged from his wife and daughter he lives alone on his yacht in a marina.

Cantelli’s missing nephew brings Horton’s personal emotions into focus as he continues his investigation into the disappearance of his mother. Missing persons is a fascination of mine. When someone goes missing it leaves a huge void in the lives of those left behind and leaves so many unanswered question.As the saying goes nature abhors a vacuum but how do we fill that? Each individual is different.

I like complex plots with troubled characters. I like a good mystery, a puzzle to solve and I enjoy delving into the motivations and personalities of people. I’m fascinated about why people do the things they do? What are their fears, their pleasures, their desires, to what extent will someone go to protect himself? Exploring these aspects is what I attempt to examine in my crime novels whilst at the same time, hopefully, providing a riveting and entertaining read.

Death Surge

Over 150 people packed the hall to listen to tales of crime

Over a hundred and fifty people packed the hall in Southampton on 1 April to hear me talk about the writing process and the DI Andy Horton crime series set on the South Coast of England.

I entertained members of Southampton U3A with the exploits of the rugged and flawed detective, and talked about the inspiration behind the series which is published in the UK and USA by Severn House and which has been translated into several languages.

I spoke about how I plot and research the police procedural crime novels and gave a reading from The Suffocating Sea, number three in the Horton series, before taking a number of questions from the floor.

Shroud of Evil, the eleventh in the DI Andy Horton crime series is published in the the UK and Commonwealth this month in hardcover, and will be published in the USA in August, when it will also be released as an ebook.

It was a fantastic event and books were very quickly sold out. U3A audiences are always a delight to speak to.

My next event is on Friday 16 May when I will be chairing a panel of crime authors at Crimefest, Bristol.

I'll also be giving a talk at Bognor Regis Library on 20 May.

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

The Suffocating Sea. Pauline Rowson