Black holes and writing strategies

As a thriller writer, whether action or psychological, the beginning and end of a novel are not usually the danger zones. It’s the middle. That’s the part when things can slow down or get confusing, and the reader can put the book down and begin searching on Netflix… So, you need something to keep the reader, and even the writer, going full steam ahead. And what is more attracting and compulsive than a black hole?

The theory is simple. Whether using a three, four or even five-act structure, there need to be big events, cruxes at the pivotal points, that pull the reader in, make them gasp and think ‘No no no!…

Duelling psychologists…the dead can lie (extract)

I’m working on the new novel, The dead can lie, about Greg Adams, a criminal psychologist whose wife was murdered by a serial killer. A year on, Greg has got nowhere trying to track down the ‘Dreamer’, and comes close to blowing his brains out, when gets a new lead.

I thought I’d show an extract, as people keep asking me what I’m working on. This book is quite different from the Nadia series, as the action is all on the inside, so to speak, as it’s a psychological thriller, though there is some action particularly at the climax of the book.…

Diving with sharks and mantas…

The Nadia Laksheva series contains a lot of diving, and as they say, write what you know… I’ve just been diving with sharks and mantas in Socorro Islands, off the western coast of Mexican Baja. These are remote uninhabited islands in the Pacific Ocean, famed for sightings of many large ocean-going fish (called pelagics), including sharks and giant mantas, as well as humpback whales and dolphins. 

 

On the menu in May were mainly sharks and mantas. For me, mantas are the most graceful creatures on the planet, and we had a LOT of contact time with them while diving, especially at a location called the Boiler.…