This time last week I was on the train to Bristol and my second CrimeFest courtesy of my publishers Urbane Publications.
What a difference a year makes! Last year I was looking forward to the publication of Dancers in the Wind in October. This year I had just celebrated the launch of the second Hannah Weybridge thriller, Death’s Silent Judgement. And I was booked to take part in a panel!
There are often three panels taking place at the same time so it’s wise to study the programme beforehand and make decisions. Friday was a busy day for me as I went to four panels and then appeared on one of the last ones of the day “Journalists: Characters who tell stories for a living” moderated by Rod Reynolds. Once I’d got over my nerves, this was great fun and the other three panelists, Walter Lucius, Antti Tuomainen and Matt Wesolowski were a hoot.
On the Friday evening there were two drinks receptions – the first being the Crime Writers’ Association’s Dagger Announcement always fun with a thrill of expectation. Not mine I hasten to add, but one day…
One of the wonderful things about CrimeFest is meeting up with other writers, book bloggers and readers, publishers and agents. Some of whom I know well, others I’ve enjoyed getting to know better. There was a wonderful woman from Melbourne who had a great idea for circumventing having to take numerous signed copies back with her. She asked authors on the panels to sign her programme and then bought the books in her home city.
Last year I had to leave on the Saturday morning to attend a wedding, so this year I booked for the Gala Dinner which was great fun – especially sitting with and near other Urbane authors. The only disappointment was that Matthew Smith, CEO of Urbane Publications, was unable to join us.
Listening to other authors discussing their work is fascinating and instructive. My favourite panel was the last one I went to before leaving: Short Stories – Motives for Murder moderated by Martin Edwards and joined by fellow CWA grandees Ann Cleeves, Janet Laurence, Peter Lovesy and LC Tayor. The rapport between these five was brilliant and as writers they are inspirational.
So dates in the diary for CrimeFest 2018!
Panel photo courtesy of Joy Kluver.
Where to begin to review a book that defies categories and genre classification? From the first line of The Gift Maker the reader is absorbed into a world that is both real and unreal, secular and magical. A fantasy and a morality tale. A world in which male students get drunk, spout philosophical polemics and lust after young women who seem to have a lot more self-discipline.
Mark Mayes creates worlds within worlds using smoke and mirrors and provides a challenging and thought-provoking read. Some of the descriptions I found to be almost too detailed in their gruesomeness they and reminded me of Dickens with his visions of the debauchery, poverty and evil of Victorian London. And yet this is counterbalanced by poetic twists of fantasy which will have you enthralled.
Being published by Urbane Publications has introduced me to many new authors. One such is Simon Michael, a former barrister, who uses his past experiences to bring a unique legal perspective to his crime thriller series set in London during the 60s which began with 
As much as I enjoyed the first in the Charles Holborne series, the second book, 
Creating a title for a non-fiction book seems comparatively easy. It needs to make a statement about the contents of the book and possibly the author’s stance. When I wrote my first two non-fiction books for Wayland Publishing they were part of a series so the title was agreed in advance. My university books: Applying to University and Surviving University (Need to Know) were similarly constrained and the books I wrote linked to my family website, 
My short story collections (Endeavour) took their titles from one of the stories: Cheque-Mate and Other Takes of the Unexpected and A Tale of Two Sisters. However the latter did begin life as A Proper Pride!
“I can enjoy her while she’s kind;