Aspiring novelists are often told to write about what they know. I've never had much time for that - whence my Edinburgh novels set in the future (oddly enough, I'm not the owner of a time machine) and the scenes from World War Two in the Greek books (I'm not that old).

The Death List

So how come I've started a series with a crime novelist as protagonist? Well, for one thing readers seem to be interested in the writer's life, and I wanted to share the ups and the devastating downs with them. (I omitted the fact that most writers' lives are less interesting than your average street cleaner's - at least the latter get plenty of fresh air...) But also I was setting myself a challenge. Could I make a writer, that most shy and solitary of creatures, into a convincing hard-nosed investigator? Readers will judge that for themselves, but I think I pulled it off. It helps that Matt Wells is already a bit of a hard man, having played rugby league for years - and that he has a group of even tougher friends. But more significantly, he gets personally involved when his loved ones are put in danger by taking action and by using any means he can to save them - as any decent human being would. In that, writers are no different from anybody else.

The Matt Wells series contains another self-imposed test. The plots will all concern antagonists (baddies in common parlance) who either make use of satanic names and images (like the White Devil in The Death List) or actively worship the Devil. Now, I'm a confirmed (so to speak) atheist and I've always scoffed at such beliefs. But I'm also a devoted watcher of trashy horror movies and I've always been fascinated by visions of the underworld (Homer, Virgil, Dante, Bosch, Brueghel, even Wilfred Owen). So I wanted to see if I could scare myself by writing these books. Answer -YES! Which means that any readers out there who actually believe in the afterlife, demons and the devil should be absolutely terrified...

Happy reading!

(Will that do, Mephistopheles?)