What's on in August

It's August and the summer is in full swing here in Britain. Traditionally it is a quiet month for talks and radio interviews so it is a good time to take a break, except I find that very hard to do because I am always working on the next crime novel and thinking through plots and characters. 

I can leave off pounding the keyboard though on those very hot days and sit in the shade of the garden or the summerhouse with paper and pencil in my hand to sketch out my characters or draw up plot lines, and sometimes just to sit, knit and think. Writing involves a great deal of thinking.

This August I am working on the outline for the fourth in the Art Marvik Marine Mystery series having just finished writing the third Marvik novel.  I say finished but in reality I am only up to sixth revisions and for me that means there are another two revisions to go before I am happy with the novel. ( It usually takes me eight revisions).  I wanted to pause for a while though and examine where I am heading with Marvik, and to draft the next episode in his action-packed life as he is forced to re-examine the death of his parents in an underwater accident in the Straits of Malacca in 1997.  I have started the first draft but don't expect to finish that by September when I will need to put Marvik aside for a few months to return to my troubled detective, Andy Horton.

As an aside the beginning of August is an important time in the international sailing calendar with Cowes Week taking place from the 6th to 13th of August. It is an event that DI Andy Horton is certain to attend being a sailor but in Death Surge he is called to the small town on the Isle of Wight during the sailing regatta on business rather than  pleasure. Sergeant Cantelli is frantic with worry because his nephew Johnnie Onslow has failed to show to take part in the racing on one of his boss's yachts.What begins as the hunt for a missing man soon becomes the search for a ruthless killer..



The new DI Andy Horton, number thirteen in the series, is due to be published in February 2017.  I have written number fourteen and it is my intention to return to that and finish it before returning to Marvik number four.  It sounds complicated having two heroes and three novels on the go but there is method in my madness. At least I think there is, only time will tell.