Another guest post

Two days to go to the release of The Deep Secret, and I’m appearing on yet another blog, this time belonging to fellow Crooked Cat crime writer, Frances di Plino.

Frances and I are old friends. Under her real name, Lorraine Mace, she is a tutor for the Writer’s Bureau and a regular columnist in Writing Magazine. Those are exactly the kind of friends you need when you’re trying to get ahead in this game.

As Frances di Plino, she has turned out two gritty novels with Detective Inspector Paolo Storey as the central character (and there’s a third due near Christmas) and never let it be said that Frances is afraid to tackle difficult subjects. I’m not prepared to give anything away, but her novels, Bad Moon Rising and Someday Never Comes, reflect the increasingly violent society in which we live.

And it is that very violence which is at the heart of my post on her blog. Is there a need for our crime fiction to be so violent? You can read what I have to say on the matter over on Frances’s blog.

Like its predecessor, The Handshaker, my latest novel is graphic and violent, but even if I have reservations, I don’t apologise for it. When I read daily report of acids attacks, shootings, stabbings, I come to the sad conclusion that as a society, we’re more offended by sex than we are the callous taking of human life.

The Deep Secret is published by Crooked Cat Books on Friday October 25th in all e-formats and paperback. You can pre-order your paperback copy on Amazon and there is a launch event on Facebook to which everyone is welcome.