Another Top Twenty Hit

Last Wednesday (June 19th) saw the release of The Summer Wedding Murder, the 8th STAC Mystery, and it’s already made the top twenty in its category.

At six o’clock BST this morning, it sat at #13 in the Amazon UK Books/Crime Thriller & Mystery/British Detectives top 100.

This is a remarkable achievement in less than four days, and as always it’s the reader to thank. I only write the things, I merely let people know they’re there.

It may or may not hold this position, but whatever happens over the coming days and weeks, it’s already eclipsed the previous titles in the series. Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend took several weeks to make the top twenty, My Deadly Valentine never made it, The Filey Connection makes occasional forays into the top twenty before dropping out again, and the best ever performance came from The Chocolate Egg Murders, which made the upper reaches of the chart in five days. The Summer Wedding Murder has beaten it by one day.

What’s the secret?

Hanged if I know. Perhaps it’s the mix of a classic, British grumpy old man, and a whodunit puzzle, or maybe it’s the ordinariness of the characters. One reviewer described them as “like people you’ve met at some time.”

I do know that I enjoy writing them. Finding new ways for the two women to wind up Joe is fun, finding new ways for him to exercise his outspokenness and new gags to drop into the text, is an amiable way of passing the time. And Joe is not the heroic type of detective. He’s short and slight, not big and beefy. When it comes to a fight, there’s only ever going to be one loser: Joe Murray. So he doesn’t get into fights.

Whatever the reason I’m glad that so many people find him and his two companions to be good company.

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The Summer Wedding Murder STAC Mystery #8 is available for download from:

Amazon UK (Kindle)

Amazon Worldwide (Kindle)

Smashwords (all formats)

Crooked Cat Books (MOBI, EPUB, PDF)

And in paperback from

Amazon UK

Amazon Worldwide