Hurrah! Maloney's Law on Amazon.com (see full post for links) now has its cover art up and you can even buy it - from a choice of sellers, no less. Well, gosh! That's really made my day. Here's a blurb to whet your appetite:

"Paul Maloney, a small-time private investigator from London, reluctantly accepts a case from his married ex-lover, Dominic Allen. Before he knows it, Paul finds himself embroiled in the dark dealings of big business and the sordid world of international crime. The deeper he pushes, the closer he comes to losing everything he holds dear. Can he solve the mystery and protect those he loves before it's too late?

Maloney's Law was shortlisted for the Harry Bowling Novel Awards (for novels set in London) and the Royal Literary Fund Awards, and longlisted for the Yeovil Novel Prize."

You can read an extract on my website here (see full post for links) and I'm also pleased that Sarah Bengry at Writewords has described the extract as "beautiful, clean, evocative prose". Thanks also for that, Sarah! Though I'm not really sure my stuff has ever been clean ... Only accidentally anyway ...

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I have just been listening to the first four of the five shortlisted stories in the BBC National Short Story Award, which are being broadcast this week on Afternoon Reading on Radio 4. I have to say how much I enjoyed Clare Wigfall's The Numbers, which left me feeling deeply moved, and Jane Gardam's The People on Privilege Hill, which had me giggling. However, I have no idea if this was because of the stories or because of the actors who read them so excellently (Tracy Wiles and Goeffrey Palmer respectively)........

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Life appears to have speeded up, and really at a time when I should be concentrating hard on the finale of my novel. It’s fat, challenging, and sits in the corner demanding attention, much like a baby ogre. Not a flattering simile, but writing this book does sometimes resemble a love/hate relationship, in that I’ve never written a work of such length before and let me tell you, it can be quite daunting – especially when work, flat hunting and maintaining a social life doesn't leave room for much else!

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First off, I just wanted to thank everyone who took the time to send me good wishes and get better messages. Do you know, they really work.

I am officially starting to feel better. Well, more like myself at least. Today I didn't need to sleep, or even nap. I've even been brave enough to lay off the codeine, and I can actually put my foot on the floor without wanting to scream. I can even touch my foot now - I can even remove my sock without fearing I'll go straight into shock from the pain. These are all tremendous things.

(Other tremendous things include: 1. It doesn't seem the bacteria's got into my bloodstream and spread, and 2. it's not turned into the gangrene thingumy it could have. 3. It's deep enough into my skin that it hasn't scarred.)

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Some excitement on the Goldenford front: we've been asked by Ann Gawthorpe, a Hodder author, to add a section on the Goldenford story to her forthcoming book, Teach Yourself How to Write Your Life Story, so I've done that for her and sent it off. Thanks for thinking of us, Ann - and I look forward to reading the book when it comes out in January 2009. It's nice to see people are beginning to recognise our name too.

Though I'm afraid it's rather a case of from the sublime to the you-know-what today. This morning, the Golden Girls were asked to go in and sign our books at Waterstone's in Guildford. As you know, these days being invited to do something by Waterstone's is much like Goliath inviting David for supper and a "chat". That is, you know he doesn't want you there, he despises you utterly and there ain't no way on earth you're going to get out of there alive. Which proved to be much the case. As we are all optimists at heart, we took extra supplies of books as we know our novels like a trip out now and then, but never get to stay anywhere different, sigh. When we got there, the assistants - even those who knew we were coming - stared at us as if we were recent arrivals from the Planet Zog (now, that would explain a lot ...), and I had to force one of them (as sweetly as possible) to get copies of Pink Champagne and Apple Juice out of the stock room where Waterstone's have decided to keep them (aka the bin) - as otherwise I wouldn't have had anything to sign at all. They weren't even remotely interested in considering either Thorn in the Flesh or Tainted Tree either. They then swept all four of us into the never-visited Local Interest books corner where they'd hidden the rest of our stuff so they wouldn't have the embarrassment of us actually meeting any of their customers. God forbid we should lower the tone ...


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I assumed that my brother’s visit would be a deathly, crushingly tedious affair, full of unreasonable accusations, tantrums and the dredging of past errors. And God knows what he’d be like. But it’s okay because I have a Wii and so we can sit next to each other and play Mario Kart and not have conversation as the main focus of the afternoon.

Brian was sent over to West London for some reason (try as I might I cannot remember who he works for or what he does – just a tedious office job, I assume) and has used the opportunity not to return to the office (wherever that is). For the first time in fourteen years or so we play together and it is an easy way to get along, cheating really, like taking a first date to the cinema. A quick drink afterwards – who can’t make one drink go well? And who can’t sit and play a video game with someone else if that’s what you’re into? And Brian is into it. He never stopped playing them every night. He owns all the consoles and that is how he spends his evenings.

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Have spent a lot of today staring madly at the vast flipchart city resulting from last week’s Awayday. Flipcharts are the work of the devil, you know. I attempted to factor their scattered pearls of wisdom into the notes I’ve already typed up from yesterday, but I think I left the will to live outside the door today. Sigh. We struggle on.

I must say though that I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday’s Tosh TV Offering of “Bonekickers” – pure hokum and a great laugh, but it had a certain style and I rather liked the characters. The end scene of dozens of burning crosses in a cave and people swinging above them from ropes whilst hacking each other with Medieval swords was pure joy, m’dears. Bring it on … How I’d love to have a scene like that in one of my books, but I’m not sure that either Paul or Craig’s skills quite stretch to that. Yet ...


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My story, The Angel in the Car Park, is one of two stories in today's Sharp Things podcast from RethinkDaily. You can listen directly from the site, download the feed as a podcast, or download it from my website's Short Stories page.

It is beautifully read - a very different story from last week's, the only story I have ever written with a Jewish character, a rabbi. The actress, Chloe Gilgallon, who read both stories, did a wonderful job of bringing it to life. Thank you to Chloe and to RethinkDaily, what a great service they are doing for the short story!


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I'm just back from Bantry, still on a total high from the amazing buzz that was the Fish Anthology launch. I had an incredible time, more socialising in two days than I usually do in a year and every minute of it a joy.

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Anyone who's dropped here before will know that I'm always fascinated by analogies and similarities and differences between the practice of different arts, and last Saturday the London Literature Festival obliged with something close to my dream team, for a panel discussion. I'm halfway through social philosopher Richard Sennett's book The Craftsman: how could I resist hearing what he would talk about with tenor and academic Ian Bostridge, novelist and cultural historian Marina Warner and ceramicist Grayson Perry. There was so much said that I longed for it to be three times as long as it was, and even more that I'd taken a tape recorder with me. As it is, I filled seven pages of my moleskin.

Sennett's interest is in why and how people set out to do something - to exercise a skill - really well, beyond the basic practical and economic necessity of doing it adequately enough to earn a living. He's not just talking about medieval goldsmiths or Greek potters, but also about Linux programmers, and parents, and nurses, and anyone else whose chief motivation is to do their job as well as possible for its own sake.

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