New Year…same me (fortunately).

After what feels like 1,395 days of January, thankfully my bank account is no longer as dry as Billy Connolly’s sense of humor. Count this as my attempt to reach out into the void that is this miserable British weather and see if life is still out there (hello? … anyone?…). 

I can proudly report that my New Year’s resolution (yes, singular) is still going strong – this will be the year I publish Kilchester book 4! Technically it’s book 3, but I’ll save you the confusion of me rambling on about books. 

So instead, I’m going to ramble on about books…that aren’t my own. January might have been as long as your to-do list but at least I’ve had plenty inspiration from bingeing TV and books. One of those being ‘Jimmy The Kid’ by legendary heist-writer Donald E. Westlake. Dortmunder and his gang decide to kidnap the titular Jimmy, basing the entire heist on a book by Richard Stark. For those of you who are unaware, Stark is a pen name of Westlake… it all gets very meta and chapters from the fictional book are reproduced in their entirety. Since I don’t have a pen name I was thinking of chatting to my showbiz writer-pal Trevor Wood and seeing if we couldn’t do similar in the future.

Then again, by the time I’ve written GTGKTB and the next one in the series I already have an outline for I’ll probably have forgotten that idea.

Ah well…

I’ve also been buying up a bunch of Westlake titles from the Hard Case Crime publisher… mostly to read but partially because they have proper old-school pulp-style covers and were definite inspiration for the current crop of Kilchester covers.

I’m currently reading ‘Charlesgate Confidential’ by Scott Von Doviak so will report back with my findings. Coincidentally, I’ve been toying with the idea of Kilchester’s very own book club so you can do the same. Sound good? Head over to the Irregulars and have your say.

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