Calling all crime readers

If you like reading crime novels and you haven’t yet signed up for the Crime Readers Association (www.thecra.co.uk) then do so right away! It’s free, it has an online newsletter (Case Files), details of events, tips on writing … in short, you can get to know a lot about the crime writing world, both fiction and non-fiction. In the second issue of Case Files, due in the middle of May, my second Jack Colby novel, Classic Calls the Shots, is one of the novels featured. I’m in the middle of the fourth at present, and have just left Jack in a pretty nasty situation, from which I can’t at the moment see any way of extracting him. It’s nice therefore to look back a book or two. Time has a way of eradicating memories of such difficulties and Shots now seems as though it was plain sailing compared with Number 4. I suppose Jack will eventually escape in Number 4, but how?
The Crime Readers Association is run by the Crime Writers Association (www.thecwa.co.uk) which had its annual conference recently. This year it was at Southampton, not long after the Titanic anniversary. The annual get-together is a meeting place for friends combined with interesting talks. This year they included Joan Lock talking about the bombs that freaked out the Victorian era, and one by two Marine police, who were introduced by marine mystery writer Pauline Rowson – seen in the photo with her husband Bob. I always return spurred up for the writing fray again on my return from such conferences, and this one was no exception. So how come I can’t sort Jack out in Number 4?