David W. Robinson's Blog: Always Writing, page 30

Crooked Cat’s Valentine Sale

It’s Valentine’s Day on Friday (just in case you haven’t noticed).

The eternal cynic, Flatcap, would struggle to understand why it has to be celebrated, but celebrated it is, and Crooked Cat treat it with the respect it deserves. So they’ve lowered the prices of their Amazon e-books for the whole of the weekend.

Right across the board, all e-books are now 99p or less. To get that into some kind of perspective, it means you can pick up all ten STAC Mysteries for less than a tenner.

To give it even greater perspective, a tenner is the price of a bottle of cheap and nasty supermarket vodka. Skip the vodka and buy the STAC Mysteries instead. They’ll last a lot longer and do you a damn sight more good than a bottle of gutrot.

Naturally, it’s not limited to the STAC Mysteries. Every title in the Crooked Cat list is now 99p or less. It means you can also buy the two Croft/Millie novels, The Handshaker and The Deep Secret, and for you sci-fi/paranormal horror fans, how about Voices, the story of one man’s fight to recover from a terrorist attack and rid himself of the demons trying to possess and control him.

Richard Hardie said of Voices: This is real horror at its best, not because it’s full of blood and gore (there’s plenty) but because you really believe it could be happening.

So there you have it. A plethora of goodies, from sci-fi to thrillers, whodunits to gritty noir, fantasy to historical and plenty of romance, they’re all less than a pound in the Crooked Cat Valentine sale.

But hurry. It all ends on Sunday.

Spring in the Air

Why should I? (Groan)

That gag is older than me, which doesn’t augur too well for the rest of this post.

One of the issues with writing full time, is sleep. You tend to kip when you need to, and this morning I didn’t go to bed until pushing on 4 o’clock. As a consequence, I didn’t get up until half past ten, by which time, the sun was shining on the moors and there was a sense of spring in the air.

It didn’t last. One pace outside the door with the dog and it became obvious that it was a visual impression only. The reality was colder than polar bear’s backside. It was the little things which told me. The way my glasses froze up, the manner in which the dog had to be dragged out for his morning walkies and the sheet of ice on the ground which almost had me arse over tit.

But, in truth, spring isn’t far away. A month ago, the sun rose at 8:25 and was gone again by 4 p.m. this morning, it was up at just after 7:50 and it won’t set until getting on for 5 o’clock. The temperature does rise to the point where we can turn the thermostat down a few notches. Before you know it, we’ll be through March, into April and Easter will be knocking on the door.

All of which reminds me that the next STAC Mystery, Death in Distribution is due around Easter time, and if we’re going to make the deadline I’d better get a move on.

Last year, we released The Chocolate Egg Murders in time for Easter, which was advantageous because there’s not a lot of point releasing an Easter title around August Bank Holiday. The Chocolate Egg Murders was a success, reaching #5 in its category chart. I’m hoping Death in Distribution will improve on that.

To give you a small taster of what’s to come, Joe and Keith, the STAC bus driver, have arrived at Ballantyne Distribution after one of their trucks was involved in a fender bender with the bus, and Joe is in fine form dealing with a stroppy security guard on the main gate.

***

The guard indicated the giant building two hundreds away, directly ahead of them. “That’s the Sort Centre. You’ll find the main entrance on that side.” He pointed to the right. “Report to security. They’ll sign you in and take you through to Dispatch, and once you sign in, you’re liable for a search.” He now pointed down to yellow parallel lines on the ground. Three feet apart, they were marked with pedestrian icons. “Stick to the marked footpaths and watch out for lorries and shunters.”

“Shunters?” Joe asked. “You have a railway line in there?”

The guard scowled further and pointed to one of the yellow tugs towing a trailer at speed around the yard. “The guys driving the tugs are called shunters.”

Joe slotted his car into gear. “And what do they call people like you? Warders or just plain screws?”

“Now look—”

“Keep your tights on, pal. Liable for a search.” Joe dropped his sneering tone. “Come on, Keith.”

As they wandered along the marked footpath, following it towards the building, then off to the right, the car park reminded Joe of a visit he had made to a car factory on the outskirts of Liverpool. There were simply hundreds and hundreds of cars, even if these were mostly second hand, and no empty spaces.

Even from this point, no more than thirty yards from building, it was long walk, moving to the right, then along the end, and it involved crossing the roadways used by the shunters and lorry drivers.

A tug pulled up to let them cross. As they reached the pathway alongside the main sort building, the driver slid open his window.

“Where’s your hi-vis vest?” he shouted.

“Under me low-vis shirt,” Joe called back. “What the hell are you on about?”

The shunter fingered his day-glow yellow vest. “High visibility clothing. It’s compulsory. You can’t walk round this yard without one.”

“We just did,” Joe replied.

The shunter reached for his radio. “I’ll have to report it. Health and Safety will have you for it.”

“Yes, well, tell Health and Safety that if they want me, I don’t come cheap.”

***

Will Joe’s irritability get him anywhere? Will Health & Safety have him? Will they be searched? Or will something more sinister take place? Sorry, but you’ll have to wait to find out.

In the meantime, we have another one of those little celebrations coming up: Valentine’s Day. And what do you know? Joe got into some trouble last year when someone thought he was the Sanford Valentine Strangler. You can read all about it in:

 

My Deadly Valentine STAC Mystery #6. is published by Crooked Cat Books, available for the Kindle and all e-readers, and also in paperback from most online booksellers.

Death in Distribution, STAC Mystery #11 will be published by Crooked Cat Books in the spring.

Murder With Love

It’s February 1st a week on Saturday and two weeks beyond that is Valentine’s Day. So you have a little over three weeks to buy that special something for the one you love.

A year ago, Joe Murray was facing exactly the same conundrum. What to buy for the woman of his dreams. And he, too, got an extra Valentine surprise…well it was more of a shock really, when he found himself accused of murder, not once but four times over, after the Sanford Valentine Strangler struck again.

Joe’s quite used to the police station interview rooms but usually he’s the one asking the questions. As we can see from the short extract below, when faced with an intransigent Inspector Vickers and Detective Sergeant Gemma Craddock, he had to fight to get back on the front foot.

***

“But you have been to the bungalow before, Mr Murray?” Gemma asked.

“Yes. I spent the night there on Wednesday.”

“So we will find traces of you in there?”

“I should think so.”

Vickers frowned. “Why did you stay the night?”

Joe fumed. “Because she wanted me to paper the hall ceiling. Why do you think I stayed, you idiot? She invited me.”

“You pressured her.”

Joe shook his head and then remembered the recording. “No I did not. In fact, I was about to let her get out of the taxi when she asked me in for coffee. Half an hour after that, I was about to leave, when she practically dragged me into her bed. Now what the hell do you take me for, Vickers?”

***

What does Vickers take him for? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

So what does your loved one prefer for Valentine? Flowers, chocolate and a cosy British murder mystery?

My Deadly Valentine is available as an e-download from Amazon, Crooked Cat Books, and all stores in all formats, and as a special treat for your love, you could buy the paperback to go with the flowers and chocolates.

I’m Listed for A Dagger

I’m amazed to learn that The Deep Secret, second in the Murder by Suggestion series, is in the running for the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger award.

I don’t write for awards. I don’t even write to be listed for awards. I write to keep my tiny mind occupied, and entertain my readers. But the Crime Writers Association Daggers are the most prestigious awards, certainly in Great Britain, and I have to admit I’m slightly cock-a-hoop at seeing my book listed there.

I’m not breaking out my penguin suit and dickie-bow yet, though. I’ve seen some of the other names on the list, and it reads like a Who’s Who of crime fiction. Val McDermid, Ruth Rendell, Ian Rankin, Martina Cole, Mark Billingham, Ann Cleeves. Names that have you running for the lavatory. The competition is a better laxative than a Vindaloo and eight pints of lager.

The Deep Secret is not the only Crooked Cat title in the awards lists. My old, young friend (I have to describe her like that, or she shouts at me) Frances di Plino is up for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger with her second Paolo Storey tale, Someday Never Comes, and Carol Hedges, another fine Crooked Cat Writer, is in the running for the Historical Dagger with Diamonds & Dust, A Victorian Murder Mystery.

Like me, they’re up against some serious competition, like me they’re probably feeling a little overawed.

All I can say is it was a hell of a 64th birthday present. 2014 has begun with a bang. I just hope it doesn’t end with a whimper.

When I’m 64

 

I am 64. Today as it happens. It’s not something I’d shout from the rooftops. I don’t have to. Facebook does it for me and my many, many friends spread the word by sending me their best wishes. To you all, I say, Thank you.

My birthday got me thinking about the old Beatles’ number, When I’m 64, and how accurately it might apply to me. It doesn’t.

I fail almost from the word go. I lost my hair when I was 44, not 64. As will be evident from the above picture, most of my hair is a four-day growth of beard because I couldn’t be bothered shaving.

Does she need me, will she feed me? Of course she needs me. I’m the only one tall enough to get the fresh box of teabags off the top of the kitchen cupboard, and she does feed me. With my culinary skills, if she didn’t I’d have to eat out.

I draw the line at renting a cottage on the Isle of Wight. I’d rather hit the bars in downtown Benidorm or Playa de Las Americas. And Sunday morning rides are thing of the past. These days it’s after News at Ten with the lights out, and only then when there’s an X in the month.

We don’t have a problem with indicating precisely what you mean to say. There’s not many ways you can mistake, “You tight-fisted old bastard,” when you’ve just said no to her purchase of a combined microwave and fast breeder reactor. Similarly, she won’t lock the door if I’ve been out until quarter to three, because I don’t stay out until quarter to three. I tend to nod off around half past nine.

I know what she’d say if I suggested she knit a sweater by the fireside. Pretty much the same as I’d say if she asked me to weeding the garden.  Only two words, and one of those is “off.”

On the whole, I think Messrs Lennon & McCartney viewed 64 as old. I operate on the principle of you’re only as old as you feel.

Which roughly translated means, I’m 64 and I don’t feel a day over 90.

Ten Out Of Ten

Are things looking up?

Despite the blue skies and hot days, I brought a chronic chest infection back from Playa del Ingles. I woke this morning to find it’s almost cleared up. I have a few days yet on antibiotics, but with luck, by this time tomorrow I should be able to start on the 400 cigarettes I also brought back.

Yes, I know it’s daft, but like clearing off to the Canary Islands and leaving your underpants at home, it’s just one of those quirks which make me the loveable soul I am.

There is other news, and it’s something that hasn’t happened for a while. It’s all right, madam. You won’t need your notebook. I’m not about to divulge any of my secret techniques for driving a woman wild. Besides, they’re not that secret. Any properly developed man should be able to spill the ashtray on the carpet, twelve seconds after she’s vacuumed, and trust me, there is no better way to drive Her Indoors wild.

The news concerns the STAC Mysteries. I just checked Amazon UK and learned to my delight that all ten books are back in the Kindle Cozy Crime top 100.

Only just, mind you. A Murder for Christmas, one of my personal favourites, has been wallowing just lately, but it’s sneaked back in at #99.

It’s matter of some satisfaction to see the books doing so well. They’re not what would be described as bestsellers (although Christmas Crackers did hit #1 in its category) yet they do quite well. And the original STAC Mystery, The Filey Connection, is almost two years old, yet it continues to sell consistently, and remains mid-table in the cosy crime chart.

All in all, a pleasing Sunday morning. All I need now is for United to beat Chelsea this afternoon… but that’s asking for one miracle too far.

Heavy Breathing

We’re back from the Grand Cannery, and don’t I know it. I’m freezing my tripes off and having picked up a nasty case of bronchitis courtesy one of our fellow passengers, I sound like I’m ready to make a few phone calls.

In the space of 12 hours I’ve gone from this:

To this:

The holiday wasn’t too bad. Days were bright, sunny and very warm, but at night I went from He-Man to Budgie Smuggler, and even the budgies looked like chicks.

With our usual skill-at-arms, we packed for hot days and balmy nights. As it turned out, the nights were not balmy but barmy, and the nearest thing I had to warm clothing was a shabby cardigan in drab, British grey, which was so full of holes you could use it to strain drab, British cabbage.

To complicate matters, my stomach problems mean I have to eat plain, simple food, and we couldn’t get any. Everything was fast food. Apparently it was to cater for our Scandinavian friends, who descend upon Gran Canaria in droves every January. They don’t switch to British menus until about April. They obviously don’t believe our aircraft can get off the ground until Easter. Either that or they’re convinced that Cameron and Co have decimated real incomes to the point where no one can afford a holiday further away than Withernsea, and no one goes to Withernsea in January. Even the people who live there would like to get away.

As usual. We made the best of it. I spent a damn fortune supply Her Indoors with clothing which we already had. Unfortunately, we had it two thousand miles away, in England.

Mind you, her clothing wasn’t the only thing we forgot. I took a shower on the first night only to discover that all my carefully arranged underwear had been neatly packed… back into the drawer in our bedroom at home. I was in Grand Cannery without clean shreddies. That meant an emergency trip to the shops in Playa del Ingles where it cost me an arm and a leg for half a dozen pairs of underpants.

There were some brighter moments. Like the lady who came out every morning in her nightie and wrap to set up her lounger. On the windiest day of the week, I learned that she was not wearing any knickers under the nightie.

I wonder if she left her drawers in the drawer at home.

Orf We Jolly Well Go

By this time tomorrow, while you lot are crawling out of bed and dragging yourself to the coalface for another daily grind, Her Indoors and I will be at 30,000-something feet flying south to the Canary Islands for a week of sun, sand and sauciness. I slotted in that last more in hope than confidence.

Yes, we’re clearing orf on our annual winter jaunt, and this time it’s Playa del Ingles in Gran Canaria which has the pleasure of our company.

The only drawback with foreign travel is getting there. You have to fly, and these days, I don’t like flying. It’s bad on my knees, bad on my hearing and I don’t enjoy being crammed into a pressurised cigar tube with 180 other holidaymakers with barely room to swing a cat… assuming you were allowed to take a cat on board, which you’re not.

I’m not alone in my irritation. Joe Murray suffers the same, as we can see in the following extract taken from the pages of Costa del Murder.

***

With a familiar bing-bong chime, the PA system died off, and Joe removed his watch to alter the time. “Costa del bloody Sol,” he grumbled. “What’s wrong with Bridlington?”

“At this time of year, everything,” Sheila said. “I checked, and the average temperature is twenty-four degrees.”

Joe feigned surprise. “You checked on the average temperature for Bridlington?”

“I checked on the Costa del Sol, as you well know. The average temperature for Bridlington is an overcoat and two jumpers.”

They were sat six rows from the front, Joe on the aisle, Sheila in the middle and Brenda at the window where she had already plugged in her mp3 player and opened up her Kindle e-reader.

With a glance at their friend, Sheila advised, “Just relax, Joe, we know you haven’t had a heart attack, but remember what Dr McKay said. If you don’t start to take it easy, you will have one.”

“How am I supposed to relax cooped up in a sardine tin for three hours with nothing between my feet and the ground but thirty thousand feet of nothing?” He reached into his gilet and pulled out paperback copy of Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. “I hate bloody flying.”

“Nothing will go wrong, Joe,” Sheila assured him.

“I didn’t say it would. I just said I hate flying.”

Poor old Joe. Poor old me. Still and all, by mid-afternoon tomorrow, my annoyance will have settled and I shall be soaking up a little ultra-violet somewhere West of Morocco.

I’m back in a week. Until then, be good. If you can’t be good, be careful. If you can’t be careful, try jogging on the spot. It’ll keep your mind occupied.

New Year and a New Excerpt

The New Year is well and truly here, and as usual, it’s as depressing as hell. It doesn’t get light until half past eight and it’s dark again by quarter to four, and the weather is crap.

Still, it’s not all bad news. We’re flying off to the Canary Islands on Thursday… someone has to go there.

I’m also forging ahead with the next STAC Mystery, Death in Distribution. It’s set in a world I know well; haulage and logistics. It sees Joe & Co spending an Easter weekend in Blackpool, fun capital of the North of England.

As a special treat, before I zoom off to the Grand Cannery, here’s a snippet from the early chapters.

The STAC bus has been hit by a lorry and Joe and driver, Keith Lowry, have to go to Ballantyne Distribution’s depot to report on the matter. When they get there, they’re faced with intransigent security staff more concerned with improper dress than Joe’s irritation.

***

Joe announced them. “Joe Murray and Keith Lowry. We’re here to make a report on an accident with one of your vehicles.”

Reg, short but no less rotund than the man on the main gate, looked him up and down. “So you’re the ones without hi-vis vests?”

“Not you, too?” Joe tutted. “I can’t speak for Keith, but I am wearing vest. It’s under my shirt and it’s plain white, not hi-vis. Right? I need it to keep the chill of my chest. Now can you get someone here to see us?”

The guard took out his pen. “Everyone on this site has to wear a hi-vis vest. It’s a breach of health and safety regulations to be without one. I’ll have to log it in my book.”

Joe glanced at his watch. “Now listen to me, sport, I’m here for a weekend break. I’ve already had some little Hitler on the main gate giving me earache about searches, and I’ve had arguments with one of your tug drivers, so I’m not really in a mood for your nitpicking.”

“But it’s a breach of regulations to be without a hi-vis vest,” insisted the guard.

“I don’t care if it’s a breach of the peace or a breach of the nuclear proliferation treaty or breach of your britches. Get someone out to see us.”

“I have to make a note of this.” The guard leaned on his counter. “Name?”

“I already told you my name. Joe Murray and he’s Keith Lowry.”

“Department?” asked the guard.

“What?”

“What department do you work in?”

“We don’t work in any department,” Joe said. “Or are you considering hiring me just so you can fill in your forms?”

Poring over his incident book, the guard scratched his head. “It says here, I have to log your department, but if you don’t work here, how can I?”

“You’re saying this as though you think I should give a toss,” Joe said.

The guard turned away from Joe. “Sandra, this form’s all wrong. It’s only for employees. Don’t we have one for visitors?”

Sandra, who between periods of watching the CCTV, had her nose buried in a magazine on hair care, shrugged. “Dunno.” She did not stop reading to reply.

Using his pen, the guard dug out a chunk of earwax and aimed it at the waste bin. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to about this.”

“See your doctor. He’ll syringe your ears.”

***

Will the doctor clear Reg’s ear wax? Will Joe and Keith ever get to make the report? What level of anger lurks in the warehouses and offices of Ballantyne Distribution?

You’ll have to wait until the spring to find out.

In the meantime, if you’re new to the STAC Mysteries, you can find them in all e-reader formats on Amazon, Smashwords, Crooked Cat Books and most other e-book retailers. And if you want to catch up on the series before the release of #11, why not start with the very first STAC Mystery, The Filey Connection?

Back to Normal

Well, that’s another festive season over and done with, and everything goes back to normal today. Ultra-normal, as it happens. Her Indoors is at the dentist’s today and I’m at the doctor’s tomorrow.

And the year has begun the way the last one ended, which is hardly surprising considering the other only ended the day before yesterday. On New Year’s Eve, nine out of the ten STAC Mysteries were in the Amazon UK Cosy Crime chart, this morning all ten of them are in there, and that’s a satisfying end to 2013 and an equally satisfying beginning to 2014.

Why are they so popular? Beats me. I only write them, and I have a lot of fun doing so. But a comment from A Jardine, made on The Filey Connection, soon after its release in 2012, gives a pointer.

The characters all seem like people you’ve met at some time.

That’s because they’re based on the hundreds, thousands of people I met during a working life which had me travelling the length and breadth of Great Britain. These are just everyday, ordinary folk who drag themselves out of bed, put in a day’s work, save their pennies and when they get out on a weekend jaunt, they enjoy it.

We can imagine Sheila passing her time dusting off her ornaments and hoovering the carpet. We can easily imagine Brenda spending hours wandering round the clothing stores, and it’s no stretch of the imagination to think of Joe doing the books of a night, and working out the bread order for the following day while watching Midsomer Murders and criticising Barnaby for his inefficiency.

The tales are easy going, light hearted, but essentially, they’re puzzles, challenging the reader to match Joe’s powers of observation and spot the tell-tale clues to the killer’s identity.

Do I stretch suspension of disbelief? Occasionally, I suppose I do, but almost everything which happens apparently by coincidence in the STAC Mysteries, has happened to me in real life. Take My Deadly Valentine, for example, where Joe is questioned on the Valentine Strangler inquiry. Would that really happen?

Why not? I was interviewed during the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry back in the 1970s for no other reason than I happened to own a white Ford Cortina at the time, and the police were questioning everyone who owned white Ford Cortinas.

The STAC Mysteries enjoyed an excellent 2013. So what for the future?

The next one is taking shape, and it’ll be with you sometime coming up to Easter. And I promise you there will be on or two surprises in it.

Happy New Year.