My apologies to you all that my anticipated 12 days absence from blogging to finish my new Roy Grace novel (Dead Man’s Footsteps) has now extended to a month – and I’m still not quite there yet…

Years ago my close friend, the writer James Herbert, gave me a valuable piece of advice: that the ending of a novel is even more important than the beginning, because that will determine whether readers are ultimately satisfied or not. He told me never to hurry an ending, and it is advice I have followed for every novel from Possession onwards.

I have escaped from England to France for a while – I’ve finished my last three novels down here, and being somewhere different seems to work for me. So I am sitting from dawn to well beyond dusk in the darkness of my bat-cave, just occasionally going out to work on my balcony when I feel the need to see daylight. This is true suffering for my art…. !!!

And here are a couple of pictures of the author slaving away over his hot laptop….

Meantime I hope all of you have managed to have a good summer, despite the horrific weather in England and in some other places…