• Confused man
    Murder, Rob Wrote

    Why do I write murder mystery novels?

    The easy answer would be to say I love Agatha Christie, crime dramas and complex puzzles. I was huge fan of the Famous Five by Enid Blyton when I was a child. I was an even bigger fan of Scooby Doo when it came on the TV in the early 70s. To me it was a US version of the Famous Five, updated and made funny by that lovable dog and his Scooby snacks. I was 12 or 13 when I read Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Seventeen when I tackled Murder on the Orient Express. After that, crime didn’t feature in my reading until the 1980s, when I discovered Sue…

  • Who do you think you are? image
    Write

    Who Do You Think You Are?

    A Writer’s Journey Part 1 Becoming a celebrity could help me solve a couple of problems. If I was a household name, it would be easier to get a book deal and sell thousands of novels. Quicker too. There’s also a chance of being invited onto the BBC ancestry series, Who Do You Think You Are. If nothing else, it might help me to discover whether I have ancestors who passed down their creative DNA to me because I’ve no idea why I wanted to become a writer. Okay, in case you’re thinking I’m a tormented soul in an ivory tower, or one of those people who papers their bedroom…

  • Boy reading a book
    Robservations

    When you’re different (Part One)

    Is being different a blessing or a curse? I guess it depends on your viewpoint and your experiences. In my case, the sense I was not the same as others began when I started school at the age of four.  My sin was that I could already read a little. I wasn’t trying to show off or be better than anyone else, but that’s not how I felt after the dressing down I received from the teacher. It left me with a sense of injustice I still feel today, especially when I see others treated unfairly. [bctt tweet=”It left me with a sense of injustice I still feel today, especially…

  • Crime Scene - No sex please
    Write

    No Sex Please We’re Crime Writers

    Have you ever wondered why there’s so little sex in crime fiction? Maybe there is and I’m reading the wrong books. Maybe sex and murder are not good bedfellows. Some categories of crime fiction, such as cosy mysteries, exclude explicit sex, graphic violence and excessive swearing. In my book, literally and metaphorically, this doesn’t exclude romance, sexual tension and people sleeping together. It simply frowns on graphic description. But sex scenes should only be in a story if they are essential to the plot or character development. This should be the case in any book in any category. If a killer, for instance, seduces his or her victims before killing…

  • The Soul Killer by Ross Greenwood
    Interview

    An interview with author Ross Greenwood

    I’m delighted to welcome crime fiction author Ross Greenwood to my Robservations blog. Having recently read and enjoyed The Snow Killer, I offered Ross the chance to tell me a little more about himself and his writing. Please tell me a little about yourself and your writing. Hi, I’m 46 and from Peterborough. I’ve been writing since 2015 and my eighth book is out in November. When did you first realise you wanted to be an author? I’ve always wanted to write a book, but suspected it would just be one. It’s snowballed since then, along a rather long, gentle slope with many hillocks as opposed to down a mountain!…

  • Interview

    An interview with author, Colin Garrow

    I’m delighted to welcome author, Colin Garrow, who writes the entertaining Terry Bell murder mysteries and a glorious spoof of Sherlock Holmes, The Watson Letters. He’s also written plays, books for young adults and always has several projects on the go. Colin grew up in a former mining town in Northumberland. He has worked in a plethora of professions including: taxi driver, antiques dealer, drama facilitator, theatre director and fish processor, and has occasionally masqueraded as a pirate. His short stories have appeared in several literary mags, including: SN Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Word Bohemia, Every Day Fiction, The Grind, A3 Review, 1,000 Words, Inkapture and Scribble Magazine. He currently…