I like to think of myself as a happy person, and the vast majority of people I know would hopefully agree. I laugh a lot, admittedly at silly things because I have what my husband long-identified as a “quirky” sense of humour, and I have a stack of favourite jokes....
Since my childhood I had someone who constantly whispering in my ear, saying that what I was doing was not worth a bit. Everyone hears a similar voice in their worst moments, but in my case the voice was perennial. In my golden years, that voice made me jump like a...
Trying to write an original serial killer story is a nightmare. Thomas Harris’s novels of the eighties are a touchstone for this thriller sub-genre, and hundreds of authors have attempted to replicate his gothic formula of gruesome murders by deviant,...
Perhaps this column should really be called BEHIND THE BOOKS, as Many Rivers to Cross is the second in a proposed trilogy. Publishers are wary of promoting trilogies until they are finished for two reasons: first, the author might never finish the third book, and...
As a crime writer I was always going to be influenced by my own loves, by my own history. Of course throwing a bunch of references into a book is self-indulgent, but self-indulgence is a lot of fun sometimes. Here are a few that snuck in.
I admire the ancient cultures of the Americas very much and I am always happy when a story gives me a chance to highlight their achievements and the things they have to teach the rest of us. In Catacombs, I continue with that theme by centering the book around a conference celebrating indigenous art that brings together people indigenous to the Americas with immigrants and descendants of immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Europe. Humanity has created so many things worth celebrating.
