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