Another week passes and third novel, Crime & Nourishment, is coming along nicely.

I've spent most of the last seven days trying to make my clues to discovering who the murderer is work. Each idea raises more questions and every time I have to consider why an amateur investigation uncovers something a police investigation wouldn't. It might be a humorous novel but it still has to be accurate and believable.

One of the first questions I had to ask myself was why my main character, Maggie Reynolds, left the police force in the first place. It's no spoiler to mention that she was involved in a car accident but did I want to make that the entire reason for her leaving. Was she forced out by injury? How severe would it need to be? Are we talking the loss of a limb or would being blinded in one eye be sufficient? What about a debilitating illness?

It's not exactly pleasant, trying to maim someone, but then that's what writers do; play God with their creations and a crime novel, no matter how humorous, is going to explore the sinister side of life; more so than say, one set on a coach holiday.

Not that my coach holiday novel, Driven to Distraction was exactly bereft of sadness. As the characters' lives were revealed not all of them had had a jolly time of it. Even within the humour, characters suffered. Poor old Colin found himself in a number of sticky situations, quite literally in a couple of cases.

I particularly remember creating the character of Emma, the rather over-enthusiastic guide at the nature reserve. She had a tough time of it showing the coach party round; bashing her eye on her telescope, twisting her foot in a hole and getting stung rather badly. I actually started to feel really sorry for her, even though she was an entirely fictitious person.

J K Rowling said, when writing The Order of the Phoenix, that she cried after killing off a character and I can understand that. (We all know now that was Sirius Black...don't we? Haven't you read it? Oops, sorry).

For me, humour and tragedy are two sides of the same coin. A friend of mine texted me after reading second novel, Nothing Ventured and said that she'd laughed and cried at it. That's exactly what I wanted to happen. That tells me the characters are as believable and real to the reader as they are to me and although I sometimes have to hurt them, it all makes for a great read.

Oh, and by the way; you'll be glad to know Maggie Reynolds is still in possession of all four limbs and left the police force after becoming despondent with the job. Perhaps that's not macabre enough for some of you but don't worry; I'm killing off other characters.