I have been requested by the estimable Zoë Sharp to take part in the Next Big Thing game, where I answer ten questions to tell the world about my next masterpiece and then find some other writers to do likewise. So here we go....

1) What is the title of your book?

The Barry Island Murders

2) Where did the idea come from?

The voices in my head. I wanted to try to write a crime-type story, but not the modern "whacky" soccer-mom/realtor/cake-shop owner/pensioner on her 17th murder-case type, nor the miserablist 500 page ritual serial-killer sending body-parts to the alcoholic Detective Inspector with marriage problems thing. I wanted to try something a bit more realistic, rather than a puzzle full of twists with a neat unexpected ending. These things happen all the time in books, but almost never in real life. These stories don't really play by the rules of crime books, there aren't a group of suspects, sometimes the police don't manage to catch the bad guys.... I thought I'd set it back in the 60s, and in Barry Island, where I grew up.

3) What genre best defines your book?

Nostalgic Welsh crime humour.

4) What actors would you choose to play your characters in a film?

I don't really know any modern actors, but David Jason might work for the older version of Williams, and someone like the young Roger Moore for the 60s version. I'd prefer to leave these decisions until the bidding war for the film rights dies down.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis?

Retired Policeman "Williams Of The Yard" narrates his early murder cases in a South Wales seaside town to a rather bored Daily Mail reporter in a bar.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Wait a minute....there's someone at the door....is it a frenzied mob of agents and publishers, fighting for the rights? No, it's the postlady with the gas bill. Looks like more self-publishing and self-publicising to my half-dozen adoring fans.


7) How long did it take you to write the first draft?

Four days

8) What other books would you compare this story to within
your genre?

I am, of course, unique.....just like everyone else. I don't read many books, so I'm not an expert on what's out there now.


9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

A desire to be stinking rich, world famous and incredibly successful with large numbers of attractive women.

It could happen.


10) What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

It's quite short, rather cheap and very funny....rather like myself.


The Barry Island Murders will be released upon the waiting world sometime in the next month or so.

So, now let's find some authors to pass the baton on to....since I'm a soft-boiled wimp....let's try 3 writers of gritty thrillers......

Andrew French writer of Assassin's Run & The Ares File http://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-French...

Andrew Scorah purveyor of the Dalton series, including Homecoming Blues and BorderTown Blues
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-Scorah...

and Ian Graham...author of Patriots & Tyrants http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ian-Graham/e/...