SearchThere are seventeen in the Detective Inspector Andy Horton Solent Murder Mystery series with number eighteen due to be published in Autumn 2024. To see the Andy Horton books in order visit the DI Andy Horton books page.
It usually takes me nine months to write a crime novel, six months at a push depending on what else is going on in my life! I like to write the first draft as quickly as I can. I don't do intricate plotting beforehand, I just have a basic idea, a location and usually a body, or an incident, and work on it from there. I also have some brief sketches of new characters who will feature in the book (alongside my regulars) and then I will get cracking. I plot and research as I go along.
I usually aim to have the first draft written within three months.
Crime fiction is one of the best selling genres and the most borrowed from public libraries. So what is it that makes crime fiction so popular?
Well apart from being a cracking good read, in crime fiction we know that generally speaking justice will be done and the case will be resolved and that doesn’t always happen in real life.
In crime fiction the villain either gets caught or gets his/her comeuppance but in real life the evil and manipulative, the guilty can get away with it as in the case of the unsolved murder in my own family in 1959 that of my great aunt, Martha Giles.
YES I do. Click on the above link to go to the map and then on the pointer and up will pop the relevant Detective Inspector Andy Horton Solent Murder Mystery st in that locale. There are details of each novel, the cover image and a video and more to be added in due course.
Just prior to publication of THE OYSTER QUAYS MURDERS (9) it was discovered by my publisher's reader that there really is a Lord Eames, and a very fine fellow he is too. Some discussion ensued, do we keep the name or change it so as not to risk offence? Names are always difficult to choose and it is impossible to have ones that don't exist anywhere in the world. I check as far as I can but some are bound to slip through the net. Yes there is a disclosure at the beginning of the books and indeed in every work of fiction that the characters in the books bear no resemblance to anyone living or dead but sometimes caution is the better part of valour and that is why Eames has been changed to Ames in these Joffe editions of the DI Andy Horton Solent Murder Mysteries. But rest assured, only the names have changed, the characters are exactly as I created them.
Well not everyone is pleased to have a murder on their doorstep even though it is fictional one! So it was with the first DI Andy Horton when Gunwharf Quays was replaced with Oyster Quays in THE PORTSMOUTH MURDERS. When I am using a real location to put a body I check with the owner/occupants if they are happy. Some are delighted, for example, Condor Ferries in THE GUERNSEY FERRY MURDERS, and Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in THE OYSTER QUAYS MURDERS others not so keen. Local readers and those from far away who are familiar with the area might be able to spot the difference. But others will be blithely unaware.
However, there is a map of where all the various DI Andy Horton Solent Murder Mysteries are set. On the map you will see where each novel is set. Have fun.
I loved adventure and mystery novels when I was a child and a teenager and this love of crime fiction, thrillers and mystery novels has continued throughout my adulthood. In my teens I enjoyed the novels of Leslie Charteris featuring Simon Templar, The Saint, and those written by John Creasey featuring The Baron and Gideon to name only two of his characters. Creasey was a very prolific writer and also the author of Westerns which I went through a phase of reading, including those penned by Zane Grey, an author who locked together character and land so that they were indivisible something that perhaps also took root with me, locking my characters, DI Andy Horton; Art Marvik and Inspector Ryga in with the sea and the sea with my characters.
I am also a great fan of the Golden Age of Crime Novels, those published between 1930 and 1960, for example those by John Bude, Freeman Wills Crofts, E.R.C. Lorac and George Bellairs to name only a few. I'm delighted that so many of these enterntaining crime novels by talented writers are being re-published.
Without doubt the struggle for most writers is that of getting published. It took me eighteen long years before I achieved this. Along this journey I had countless rejections and false dawns. Even when I managed to get an agent she failed to get me a publisher and therefore quickly gave up on me. I have to admit though at that time I was still learning my craft and my novels weren't polished enough.
I ploughed on undaunted and hopeful. I learned my craft, perfected my style of writing, found my voice and homed in on my genre - the crime genre. Before this I had written some sagas and a suspense novel but it wasn't until I created DI Andy Horton that I finally hit on it. Since then I have never looked back.
There are four Inspector Ryga 1950s set historical mysteries with number five to be published in June 2024. Read more about the Scotland Yard detective who is sent out to the coast around Britain to solve baffling coastal crimes.
There are lots of articles on my Latest Blog so do check them out, or send me your questions via the contact form.
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The images used on this website are from my book covers designed by Dee Dee Book Covers and published by Joffe Books and by Portsmouth area based photographers, Nick Masson and Trevor Harman.
Pauline Rowson lives on the South Coast of England and is the best selling author of many crime novels, published by Joffe Books. Her popular crime novels include the DI Andy Horton Solent Murder Mystery series, the Art Marvik mystery thrillers and the 1950s set Inspector Ryga mysteries. Subscribe to her newsletter for all the latest books news.
