A Ripping Time

The writing life goes on, and this time it was a conference in Liverpool, concerned with Jack the Ripper. My interest in true crime and crime history is largely one of the wider context of a crime, although I do have certain cases that engross me and I return to them again and again. But the specialists at the conference had staggeringly impressive knowledge in depth of their particular Ripperological interest.
I mention this because, as my next book, written with Stuart Gibbon, is a mix of contextual knowledge and practical policing. This is The Crime Writer's Casebook, from Straightforward Books. I couldn't resist the urge to include some favourite cases from the past in this, but my forthcoming Murder in Mind (Scratching Shed Publishing) includes my ongoing fascination with the story of Louie Calvert, a woman logged in texts as a murderess and fetishist. But guess what- I don't think she was guilty of murder. It's too late to save her. She was hanged. But her story encapsulates everything that absorbs me in reading crime history. More later!