FICTIONAL FAKERY

“The Murderer Inside the Mirror”. Book 2 of the “Theatre of Thieves” mysteries “Is this a forgery I see before me…?” Forgery is a criminal act, but also a wide-ranging craft. It can include a musical score purporting to be a masterpiece from Mozart or a long-lost...

MUSICAL KEYS … The legacy of the music halls

Oxford Music Hall Old songs and half-forgotten shreds of old music can be a gift to an author.  Rather than sprinkling a crime scene with conveniently dropped, helpfully initialled handkerchiefs, partially burned letters or hidden keys to secret passageways, a song...

STEALING INTO THE PAST

Launching the newly-created Fitzglen family on their maiden voyage in Chalice of Darkness, I trawled a great many legends to provide them with a plot. There is, of course, an abundance of material when it comes to legends and lore and myths.  Some might be true, some...

DANCING INTO MURDER

Embarking on a new outing for music historian and researcher, Phineas Fox, it seemed to me that it was time for him to explore uncharted territory. To date he had wandered happily and generally quite productively through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, helped...

LOCKING DOWN PLOTS AND ZOOMING INTO MEETINGS

There are always decisions to be made during the writing of a book. Usually these are straightforward and familiar – for example, should a character be killed off in Chapter Three, or can the tension be stretched out until, say, Chapter Eight? There are also the...