Born in Lincolnshire and educated mostly in Cambridgeshire.  Took a foray to Birmingham for a library degree and twenty five years later, returned to do the Masters course.  I come from a very musical family – everybody played something and I share a birthday with my maternal grandmother, who was still playing piano for the Over 60s when she was 92.  She was amazing.  Couldn’t read a note of music, but sing her a song and she would take it down in tonic-sol-fa and then accompany you as you sang it back again.  Wish I could do that!

 

I started writing when I was a small child.  I think the story where the villain dressed up as the devil to frighten the villagers away was the first one I remember.  I was 7.  Oh, and our faithful Labrador dog was in on the action, too.  Dogs have featured in my stories ever since, except that now, they are usually Golden Retrievers.  In the Tudor detective story I am currently writing, the featured dogs are greyhound/springer spaniel mixes, called Greysprings.  They help elemancers, who.... well, let’s hope the book finds a willing publisher.  I’ve always written crime stories.  I like the puzzle, the more convoluted and distorted the better.  Or perhaps it’s just that, in a perverse way, I enjoy setting myself plot twists that I have to get out of.

 

I still sing, as does Georgia Pattison, my 21st century detective.  Her voice is miles better than mine, but then she does earn her pennies singing, so it jolly well ought to be.  I’ve written two Georgia books, the second is also trying to find a publisher.  The third is champing at the bit and will get written after I’ve finished “Duty of Evil”.  The fourth is on the back burner, slowly coming to life.  You can read the first chapter of Georgia’s debut if you click on the “Books” button and you can order it from Amazon, Waterstones, W H Smith or Barnes & Noble.

 

I live on the Yorkshire coast in England and wouldn’t really want to live anywhere else.  We are just about far enough away from the sea to avoid being eroded into it for a good few years, but close enough to walk and enjoy the fresh air.  After a day slaving over a hot keyboard, looking at the sea puts everything back in their proper boxes.