'The Dead' brings to an end the 'Vengeance of Memory Trilogy' and it's strange how life suddenly seems empty without Comandante Guzman and Ana Maria Galindez to worry about. It's like having kids leave home! Almost six years of work and now they're gone. Probably. Working in two -sometimes three- time periods meant that I always had to keep a pen and note pad to hand to jot down notes about what was happening and to who. Life became a perpetual writing session. It certainly made train journeys more bearable!

And then there was the strange stuff: guys at parties telling me how much they liked Galindez! Would you talk like that about someone's daughter? I hope not. But there it is. Time to move on.

And what I'm moving on to, is a series set in 1950 featuring a French detective sent to Saigon in what was then French Indochina. Working title is 'Silent Rain'. That will keep me occupied for a while.