Just a small update

I have heard from Ostara that they hope to publish those three Falconer titles in the Autumn.  Then all the Falconer novels will be available in one place - from Ostara Publishing.  I recently had an email from one of my fans (I do have some!) expressing confusion over the arrival of Saphira Le Veske in 'Ritual of Death'.  There is a reference to her meeting Falconer earlier, but the previous novel - 'Great Beast' - does not mention her.  I was glad to clear up the apparent anomoly.
You see, there was a real-time gap between the two novels and in the mean time I was writing stories that appeared in the Medieval Murderers' books.  I always kept chronologically accurate, and in the anthology called 'House of Shadows', published in 2007, there is the story of Saphira's first meeting with William at Bermondsey Abbey.  When I later wrote 'Ritual of Death', Saphira already figured in his life.  I guess I should have made it clearer with a reference to the incident in the MM story!
My time recently has been somewhat preoccupied with my am-dram pursuits.  I was directing the famous farce by Noel Coward, 'Blithe Spirit'.  It was hard work as Coward's dialogue is so precise and wordy - tough for the actors. But we came up with a good production in the end, and had 91% ticket sales.

The seance

No excuse

I have no excuse for leaving it so long between blogs.  Except I do.  I was heavily involved in my other hobby of amateur dramatics.  I played the part of the drunken photographer, Henry Ormonroyd, in J B Priestley's "When We Are Married".  Take a look at some of the pictures on artypharty.com, Peter Mould's website.  Click on the relevant play and look for the red-faced man!  The play went down well, and we all got plenty of laughs - all for the right reasons.
And now I am embarking on directing an Alan Ayckbourn play called "Taking Steps".  We present it in May in Hastings, then take it in June to our sister drama group in Chicago Heights, USA.  These are Alan Ayckbourn’s words about the play.
“In the first act you take the audience by the hand and lead them across the floor.  In the second, you start to walk them up the wall.  And in the third act, you begin to walk them on the ceiling, so they end up hanging upside down saying ‘Hey, what am I doing?’”

I am working on some new books also - honest!  As well as the Georgian novel with Joe Malinferno and Doll Pocket, which will revolve around grave robbers and surgeons - I have an idea for continuing the Falconer series.  I know I had bade him farewell in book nine, but I feel another one coming on.  This one will be set in Trebizond, and William and Saphira are on their way to far-off Cathay.  It is a location I have used in the latest Medieval Murderers book "The Deadliest Sin", in a story told by their son David Falconer.  So, you see, there is more story to tell about them anyway.   I want to fill in the gaps, as it were.

I have also had some interest in my stories in Italy, so there is a chance that they may appear in Italian in the future.  There are some editions in German and French out there too, though they may only be available second-hand.

And there I must leave it, as I am soon to go to a rehearsal of "Taking Steps".  If you want to buy tickets for the show, go to stablestheatre.co.uk.

Truly Original!

"Falconer and the Rain of Blood" is now available to order in paperback, hardback, or ebook from Ostara Publishing.  I am proud to say that it is the first in a new series for the publisher called Ostara Originals. As well as being a first, the story is also a last - the last Falconer.  I could not go on killing people off in Oxford, and William was getting a little bored with his life there.
Having found the love of his life in Saphira Le Veske, it would have become difficult for them to live openly as they would have wished.  It was not permitted for a Jew and a Christian to have any sort of relationship at the time.  Their decision to to travel to the ends of the Earth was therefore not a difficult one.  Since meeting the Mongols in "Falconer and the Great Beast", William had a desire to see their great empire.  Their travels will thus take them as far east as it is possible to go.
Anyone eager for news of what happened to them will find a nugget of information in one of my new Medieval Murderers stories contained in the book "Seven Deadly Sins".  One of the storytellers in the book goes by the name of David Falconer, an old man of 72 in 1348, who therefore must have been born in 1276.  This was shortly after William and Saphira left England, of course.  Unfortunately, the reader will have to wait until next year (2014) for "Seven Deadly Sins" as it is the Tenth Anniversary Edition of the Medieval Murderers series of books.  In the mean time, content yourself with the ninth in the series - "The False Virgin" (Simon and Schuster, 2013).
Oh and did i say that "Falconer and the Rain of Blood" can now be ordered from Ostara Publishing?

A change in the air

With the last Falconer finished, I am now working on the next Medieval Murderers book - "The Seven Deadly Sins".  As I mentioned before, my sins are Greed and Gluttony and the book is set in 1348 during an outbreak of plague.  My two stories will be narrated by people associated with my two major characters, William Falconer and Nick Zuliani.  The first will be a tale involving Zuliani told by his granddaughter, Katie Valier.  Those of you who follow my stories will know she appeared in a short story called "A Fiery Death" that appeared in one of Mike Ashley's anthologies entitled "The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction" (check it out on my website).  And she is also in the latest Medieval Murderers book entitled "The False Virgin" due out in September 2013.  In those stories she was a young girl of 16, but now she is in her fifties and recalls a murder case she and Zuliani were involved with concerning the greed of bankers.  Yes, it happened in the fourteenth century too!
The gluttony story will probably be narrated by William Falconer's elderly son, who it emerges has encountered Nick Zuliani at some point in his past.  How will the story of murder involve gluttony?  You will have to wait until next year to find out.
On a personal level, I am just slogging through the bad weather here in England.  Though it has not been as bad in the south-east as the rest of the country.  The one highlight has been the fact that we have sold our villa in Cyprus.  Having lived there for seven years, my wife and I wanted to return to the UK.  Having the villa in Cyprus was a drag on our resources, and the market in Cyprus was poor for houses.  However, it is sold, and we are glad of it.  Flying back and forth to Cyprus every few months to tidy it up was a nuisance.  Sometimes I can miss the weather though.  The last time I returned from Cyprus, I flew from temperatures of 20C to a wet, grey 2C in England.  Roll on Spring.

An ending and a beginning

It's taken me some time to get back to writing in my blog.  I have been struggling with the final Falconer novel, which I had planned to finish by the end of September.  It took me to the end of December.  It was as though William Falconer himself did not want to 'die' (spoiler alert - he doesn't die in the book).  I write in a pretty tight fashion, such that I will never be able to write a 500-page blockbuster.  But when I completed the first draft of 'Falconer and the Rain of Blood' it was very short, so I had to work through expanding my ideas and descriptions.  I even added another layer of the story, bringing King Edward into it.  Finally, despite all his delaying tactics,Falconer's final story was completed.
I hope it will appear some time in the new year (2013), which reminds me to say Happy New Year to everyone.  Come on, I'm only two weeks late!  Another year has begun, and I have a couple of short stories to write for the Medieval Murderers' tenth book.  We were going to write tales based on the Ten Commandments, but it was thought that, though 'Thou shalt not kill.' was a fine theme for a story, it was too difficult to make something of 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' and some others.  Much better to work on the Seven Deadly Sins, and I volunteered for Greed and Gluttony.  Don't ask me why.
I am also giving some thought to expanding my stories set in Regency England.  I do like the characters, Joe Malinferno and Doll Pocket, and the chance they give me to inject more humour into my stories.  So far they have only appeared in short stories in anthologies and in other Medieval Murderers books.  They deserve a full length run, I think.  I will pull together their story so far, and send them off to Egypt to uncover tombs and mummies.  More on that when I get time.
That's all the news to date, other than to mention that I am pursuing my hobby of amateur dramatics still.  Tomorrow I start to work on a production of 'Crown Matrimonial' that I am directing.  For those of you who don't know, it's a play about the abdication of Edward VIII which concentrates on the personal lives of Queen Mary and her sons David (Edward VIII) and Bertie (George VI) and the impact David's decision had on those around him.  If you are in Hastings in April, come along.  It's on at the Stables Theatre from 12 to 20 April and the website is www.stables-theatre.co.uk