I am pleased to say I've almost finished editing 'A Reformed Character', the third instalment in the Pitkirtly series of quirky mystery novels. It will probably give a flavour of the storyline if I mention that there are now only three questions left to answer: (a) does Amaryllis really know a secret way across the …
let’s talk about crime
I don't think I've said much here about the original Pitkirtly novel, 'Crime in the Community'. However, the Kindle version has now been made available for free on amazon.com so I think I owe it to the 7,000+ people who have downloaded it to talk about it a bit. First of all, thank you very …
too picturesque for Pitkirtly
I took some pictures in Culross last weekend. Culross is an old town in Fife, just along the coast from Longannet power station and across the Forth from the massive oil refinery at Grangemouth. In that sense it is similar to Pitkirtly. However, I realised when we got home and I looked at the photographs …
filling out the plot
Now that I've finished with my Camp NaNoWriMo novel, the next task is to carry on with my edit of 'A Reformed Character', the next in the Pitkirtly series. This is a story which revolves around the theme of whether people can really change. The main plot starts with a murder, said to have been …
enhancing the setting
We walked over to Cramond Island last weekend, and once we got there I realised again what a good addition it would make to the setting for a novel - especially a thriller or murder mystery. It is only accessible at low tide via a causeway, and because it was used in the Second World War …
Different kinds of screaming
A taste of 'Reunited in Death': Amaryllis thought at first that it was jolly, girlish screaming of the kind people might do if they had suddenly found they were descended from Jesus Christ or related to Princess Diana. She could imagine some of the women here indulging in that if they got really excited by …
Background music
Sitting in my conservatory, overlooking a garden so overgrown it has almost encroached on the house, I am listening to John Barry's 'The Beyondness of Things.' This made me wonder what sort of theme tune the Pitkirtly mystery novels should have. And I decided that instead of having one general theme music, each character should …
Reunited in Death
Just a quick post to say that Reunited in Death (the second in the Pitkirtly quirky mystery series) has now been published electronically - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/66895. I am also preparing Kindle and Lulu (hard-copy) editions, which will be released any day now. I think anyone who enjoys this blog will like the novels that go with it! They …
Uncovering ancestors, the Scottish way
If you do any kind of Scottish family history research, you'll find people who have left Scotland for various other places. Maybe it's because of the weather - even I, with my well-known aversion to change and my poor command of other languages, have fantasised about retiring to the South of France or the coast …
the shop with the sinister secret
Now that the story featuring the craft shop is written, it's clear that the place contains a dark sinister secret. For all its twee china birds and pretty watercolours of local landscapes, its air of having been by-passed by the twentieth century, never mind the twenty-first, despite the ordinariness of its current owner, it cannot …
