Stephen King’s crime thriller NEVER FLINCH

 

To celebrate the release of Stephen King’s crime thriller NEVER FLINCH in paperback, Hodder and Stoughton have kindly offered readers of Shots Magazine three copies in a competition.

But first, we wrote last year on the release of NEVER FLINCH –

Though the undisputed master of the horror genre, after this latest release perhaps Stephen King will be anointed the king of crime fiction. Never Flinch features the return of Private Investigator Holly Gibney, tasked to bodyguard the controversial feminist speaker Kate McKay. It seems McKay is being stalked by a deranged brother [and sister] duo from a radical religious sect intent on disrupting her promotional book tour.

Add to the mix a serial killer referred to as Bill Wilson [aka ‘Trig’] whose intention is to '…..kill thirteen innocents and one guilty…’ in retribution for the murder of an innocent man [wrongly incarcerated] in the Ohio state penitentiary.

Read the full review HERE

In order to win one of three copies of NEVER FLINCH in paperback name three previous works [Novella, Novel, or Story Appearance] by Stephen King that also feature the character of Holly Gibney.

Email your answer to shotseditor@yahoo.co.uk by midnight on Tuesday 30^th of June 2026 – three winning entries will be picked at random and full terms and conditions of entry are noted at the bottom of this article.

GOOD LUCK!

And Hodder and Stoughton in conjunction with Stephen King present a short extract from NEVER FLINCH >

It’s April now. In the Second Mistake on the Lake, the last of the snow is finally melting.

Izzy Jaynes gives a one-knuckle courtesy knock on her lieutenant’s door and goes in without waiting. Lewis Warwick is tilted back in his chair, one foot resting on the corner of his desk, hands loosely clasped on his midsection. He looks like he’s meditating or dreaming awake. For all Izzy knows, he is. At the sight of her he straightens and puts his foot back on the floor where it belongs.

‘Isabelle Jaynes, ace detective. Welcome to my lair.’

‘At your service.’

She doesn’t envy him his office, because she’s aware of all the bureaucratic bullshit that comes with it, accompanied by a salary bump so small it might be called ceremonial. She’s happy enough with her humble cubicle downstairs, where she works with seven other detectives, including her current partner, Tom Atta. It’s Warwick’s chair that Izzy lusts after. With its high, spine-soothing back and reclining feature, it’s meditation-ready.

‘What can I do for you, Lewis?’

He takes a business envelope from his desk and hands it to her. ‘You can give me an opinion on this. No strings attached. Feel free to touch the envelope, everybody from the postman to Evelyn downstairs and who knows who else has had their paws on it, but the note should maybe be fingerprinted. Partly depending on what you say.’

The envelope is addressed in capital block letters to DETECTIVE LOUIS WARWICK at 19 COURT PLAZA. Below the city, state, and zip, in even larger capitals: CONFIDENTIAL!

‘What I say? You’re the boss, boss.’

‘I’m not passing the buck, it’s my baby, but I respect your judgement.’

The end of the envelope has been torn open. There’s no return address. She carefully unfolds the single sheet of paper inside, holding it by the edges. The message has been printed, almost certainly on a computer.

To: Lieutenant Louis Warwick

From: Bill Wilson

Cc: Chief Alice Patmore

I think there should be a corollary to the Blackstone Rule. I believe the INNOCENT should be punished for the needless DEATH of an innocent. Should those who caused that death be put to death themselves? I think not, because then they would be gone and the suffering for what they did would be at an end. This is true even if they acted with the best will in the world. They need to think about what they did. They need to ‘Rue the Day.’ Does that make sense to you? It does to me, and that is enough.

I will kill 13 innocents and 1 guilty. Those who caused the innocent to die will therefore suffer.

This is an act of ATONEMENT.

Bill Wilson

 

NEVER FLINCH by STEPHEN KING - EXTRACT FOR SHOTS MAGAZINE

Chapter 1 (p.5 – p.6 in Never Flinch paperback)

TEXT © 2025 – 2026 Stephen King and Hodder and Stoughton

More information available HERE

Terms and conditions for the NEVER FLINCH competition

# Closing date for entries is midnight 30.06.2026

# All correct entries will be entered into a prize draw and will be picked at random on 01.07.2026

# Entry is restricted to UK and Ireland.

# The winners will be notified by email within 3 days of the promotion closing date and are required to accept their prize by email or phone call within 7 days of notification.

# In the event of non-acceptance within the specified period, the promoter reserves the right to reallocate the prize to the next randomly drawn correct and valid entry.

# No responsibility can be accepted for lost or misplaced entries

# The prizes are non-transferable and there is no cash alternative

# Only one entry per person

# Incorrect or illegible answers or entries received after the entry date will not be entered into the prize draw

# The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Stephen King reads from Never Flinch via Simon & Schuster  

 Stephen King Reads from Other Worlds Than These via Simon & Schuster  

Shots Magazine wish to thank Stephen King, Kallie Townsend, Louise Court,

Francesca Russell and Philippa Pride of Hodder and Stoughton Publishing for organising this competition.

Jacket Cover Images used from Hodder and Stoughton and Simon & Schuster  

Stephen King Readings © Simon & Schuster  

Parker investigates Connolly

 

John Connolly is a very busy man. He unfailingly publishes a new book every year, alternating between his long-running Charlie Parker PI series as well as novels that can only be described as departures, or other creative endeavors such as “He” which he published in 2017, or his collections of short fiction, his collaborations and occasional pieces of journalism.

John has recently completed his Master’s Degree from University College Cork, Ireland. He hosts his own Radio show ABC to XTC with John Connolly Saturdays on RTE at 17:00 - 18:00 and he happily travels the world to promote his books and entertaining his readers and fans.

He has just completed a tour to promote THE CHILDREN OF EVE in the UK and Ireland [read the Shots review HERE].  In fact, you can follow John on Instagram HERE where he reviews all the hotel rooms he stays in while on tour. You are always guaranteed a chuckle.

So just before taking a well-earned break from the UK and Ireland leg of his promotional tour, John found time to answer a few questions about his latest work, including links to his previous work such as The Black Angel which predates The Children of Eve by a quarter of a century; how the Charlie Parker series is progressing, and early word about a new book set against the backdrop to the Watergate Affair……

John Parker: I was intrigued by the title of the novel, especially as you take it from the Salva Regina, a prayer well-known to Catholics, lapsed or not.

“…poor banished children of Eve / to thee do we send up our sighs/Mourning and weeping in this vale of tears:” Can you comment on that?

John Connolly: I was raised Catholic, and still have some vestiges of faith, so that prayer has always stayed with me. The novel never had any other title, but I suppose I liked the idea of those words being directed towards an entity that was about as far removed from the Virgin Mary as one could get…

John Parker: Where did the idea of mother and the children come from? I researched a bit and came across information about Inca mythology and the Capacocha ritual where children were chosen for sacrifice. Am I on the wrong track?  

John Connolly: It arose from a road trip I took while in Argentina about fifteen years or so ago, when I stumbled across a curious, macabre, and poignant piece of archaeological history and stored it away for use someday, as writers will do. I’m reluctant to go into too much detail, as one of the mysteries that Parker is trying to solve in the novel concerns the nature of the children. It’s a difficult book to discuss without giving too much away!

John Parker: Charlie is now middle-aged and seems to be noticing it more. There’s not a lot of running around these days. Hardly surprising, I know. Tell us about how you see the evolution of the man.

John Connolly: He’s in his late fifties, and his closest colleagues are older still. He’s in a certain amount of physical pain, he prefers to avoid physical confrontations when he can, and his reactions are not what they once were. In other words, he is, like many of us, getting on a bit. But he’s also more at peace with himself than he once was, and his rage has abated. He, like the books, is moving towards a conclusion – or a revelation, perhaps.

John Parker: Charlie’s late daughter plays an important role and perhaps you are changing tack and heading towards the grand finale of the saga? I say this because of the appearance of figures in that “unreal lagoon” who are perturbed by her presence.

John Connolly: I’ve said for a long time that I felt Parker’s story required a conclusion, and the novels are moving in that direction. The difficulty for me is that I still love writing about him, and have no shortage of ideas that I’d like to explore, so I’m trying to balance one imperative against a desire to continue in that universe. The Children of Eve offers a suggestion as to how that might be accomplished, but then there are other books I’d also like to write, some in other genres. I guess I’m dealing with the issue of what kind of career I envisage for myself in a decade, or two decades, should I live that long. 

John Parker: What a surprise to see the return of Martin Reid from 2005’s The Black Angel. Can you talk about that? Has his return always been part of your plans? 

John Connolly: I plan in general terms – I know where the series is going – but I’m always open to whatever ideas or characters pop up along the way. I was writing that section and Martin emerged from the woods, bless him. I think my unconscious must have been quietly preparing the way for him.

John Parker: What’s in the future for Charlie Parker? And for John Connolly? 

John Connolly: Next year’s book is my first mystery to move away entirely from the Parker universe. It’s called The Castle and is set against the backdrop of the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973. After that, I’ll return to Parker for 2027’s novel, which I’m working on at the moment, and then I have a hankering to return to historical fiction for one book. 

John Parker: Here’s a question I always ask you; what are you currently reading?

John Connolly: I’m working my way through Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels, along with Ian Leslie’s John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs and Lucy Mangan’s Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives. I tend to alternate between fiction and non-fiction. 

John Parker: And as you are a music lover with your own radio show and a big fan of the podcast Word in your Ear, can you remember the first record you ever bought?

John Connolly: The first album was ABBA’s Arrival, and the first single was Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. Both were hugely expensive relative to my income. I think I put less thought into buying my first car than I did that first single…

John Parker: That’s great! Thanks for giving us your time, John.

John Connolly: And great to talk again, stay well John and all at Shots Magazine.

Shots Magazine would like to thank Laura Sherlock, and from Hodder and Stoughton Publishing Rebecca Mundy and Francesca Russell – for their help in organizing this short chat with writers John Connolly and John Parker.

More information about Laura’s work is available HERE

More information on the work of John Connolly is available HERE and from Shots Magazine’s Archives HERE

Second Coming

 

The original title of Stephen King's second novel “Salem's Lot” was “Second Coming”. King was inspired to write the novel after brainstorming about what would happen if Dracula were to appear in modern-day small-town America.

“I decided I wanted to find out, so I wrote a novel,” said King in 1975.

Though he initially planned to title the novel “Second Coming, he changed it to “Jerusalem's Lot” on the advice of his wife, novelist Tabitha King, who thought the original title sounded too much like a "bad sex story." King's publishers then shortened it to “Salem’s Lot”, considering that “Jerusalem's Lot” sounded too religious.

The corruption in the government was a significant factor in the inspiration of the story, King recalls at that paranoiac time of Nixon, corruption and the Whitehouse tapes in 1973 –

“Every novel is to some extent an inadvertent psychological portrait of the novelist, and I think that the unspeakable obscenity in 'Salem's Lot has to do with my own disillusionment and consequent fear for the future. 

In a way, it is more closely related to Invasion of the Body Snatchers than it is to Dracula. The fear behind 'Salem's Lot seems to be that the Government has invaded everybody.”

The novel was first adapted into a highly successful CBS miniseries in 1979, directed by Tobe Hopper [renowned for his Texas Chainsaw Massacre] and now in 2024, a new film version directed by Gary Dauberman has been released. Dauberman is best known for writing horror films Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation and The Nun, as well as co-writing the 2017 film adaptation of Stephan King’s “It”.

So it was excitement all the way when Shots Magazine Editors Mike Stotter and Ali Karim were invited by Stephen King’s UK publishers [Hodder and Stoughton] to a press screening of the new film version [and reworking] of Salem’s Lot ahead of its UK Cinema release.

It should be noted that Warner Brothers [Discovery] released Salem’s Lot in America to its streaming service MAX [much to Stephen King’s irritation] while in the UK Warner Brothers Pictures opted for a full nationwide cinema release. To celebrate this theatrical release Warner Bros UK hired out the prestigiously historic venue, London’s Regent Street Cinema for its launch on Tuesday 8^th of October.

The Regent Street Cinema was first opened in 1848 and is housed in the flagship building of the University of Westminster. When it was first opened, it was used as a theatre. In late February 1896, the cinema played a short movie by the Lumière Brothers. It was the first motion picture shown in the United Kingdom.

The cinema was decorated in spooky fashion, with actors mingling amongst the invited guests and assembled journalists – with bloody cocktails, wine and blood bags with a weird concoction.

The film though two hours long moved at a frantic pace, with plenty of jump scares bound to a rousing soundtrack which included the late Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown, as well as Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man.

We were talking to journalist and editor at The Express Jon Coates prior to the start of the film. It was no surprise that Salem’s Lot was his first Stephen King novel and how it deeply impacted his love of this author’s output. Coates was not alone.

Jeffery Deaver noted that “King Singlehandedly made popular fiction grow up. While there were many good best-selling writers before him, King, more than anybody since John D. MacDonald, brought reality to genre novels. He's often remarked that Salem's Lot was Peyton Place meets Dracula, and so it was. The rich characterization, the careful and caring social eye, the interplay of story line and character development announced that writers could take worn themes such as vampires and make them fresh again.”

Peter Straub recalls that "One day I wandered into a very good book store and saw Salem’s Lot on the main table. If I had known that the book was about vampires, I might not have bought it. But I did buy it, and when I learned that one of the main characters was a vampire, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought, 'Oh my God, this guy is working with a very tired, almost exhausted, trope and he’s making something really vibrant out of it.' So I became a huge Stephen King fan on the spot."

So as the curtain came down, and we mused over the new film, the consensus we agreed upon was -

It’s hard to pare down such a dense and thematically complex novel such as Salem’s Lot into a two hour movie, even Tobe Hooper struggled with a two part miniseries back in 1979/1980. In our opinion Gary Dauberman had crafted an elegant updating to this gothic tale – though as readers, we would always steer you to grabbing a copy of King’s novel from Hodder and Stoughton – click here

Or explore Stephen King’s more recent books – reviewed here at Shots Magazine via the links below.

HOLLY – now out in paperback

YOU LIKE IT DARKER – still out in Hardcover

And an article here WORKING WITH THE KING is worth perusing.

We present a few photos from the launch party for SALEM’S LOT 2024 in LONDON

Shots Magazine would like to thank Philippa Pride and Francesca Russell of Hodder and Stoughton as well as Warner Brothers Pictures UK for a wonderfully creepy evening.

In The St Hilda's Spotlight - Harriet Evans

 Name: Harriet F Townson (Harriet Evans)

Job: Author

Website:- https://www.harriet-evans.com

Facebook: harrietevansbooks

X: @HarrietEvans

Instagram: @harrietevansauthor

Introduction

Harriet Evans is a former publisher and the author of 14 books. Her first book Going Home was published in 2005. She has since gone on to write a number of Richard and Judy book club selection picks and won the Good Housekeeping Book of the Year. Her debut crime novel D is for Death was published in June 2024.

Current book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing or both)

A Pocket Full of Rye, by Agatha Christie. I have always had a terrible memory which is great for rereading crime. I never have any idea whodunnit. 

Favourite book: 

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers. It is everything a book should be. Strong female lead, past and present colliding, detection, romance, academic women, and a glorious setting. I reread it every other year and it always gives me something new. 

Which two musicians would you invite to dinner and why?

Mozart, to see what genius is like, and Barbra Streisand. I have just read her autobiography and I’m obsessed with her. 

How do you relax?

I am never relaxed. I wish I was. I do however spend a lot of time writing in bed though which is obviously more relaxing than lots of jobs. 

Which book do you wish you had written and why?

Gaudy Night – see above. The Cazalet Chronicles, by Elizabeth Jane Howard, about a family before and after WW2. And A Murder is Announced, which is to my mind joint first best of Agatha Christie’s novels. (The other is Death on the Nile). 

How would you describe your latest published book?

 D is for Death is my first crime novel. It is set in 1935, and introduces the detective Dora Wildwood, who is escaping a terrible fiancé and runs away from her tiny Somerset village, jumping on a train to Paddington and arriving at dawn. From there she ends up in the London Library, and almost immediately discovers a dead body. It’s about her attempts to solve the murder and to work out what she is going to do next. I would describe it as Cold Comfort Farm meets Fleabag meets Miss Marple. 

With A Dance to the Music of Crime: the artful crime to murder being the theme at St Hilda's this year, which are your three favourite albums?

The Marriage of Figaro (1982 Decca recording Solti te Kanawa & Allen)

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Ella Fitzgerald sings the Gershwin Songbook 

If you were given the ability to join a band which would it be and why? 

ABBA, because to sing that music all day every day would be incredible. You’d never get tired of it. Plus, it would be your job to sing Voulez-Vous. What a job. 

If you were to re-attend a concert which would it be and why?

Not a concert but an opera: Tosca at the ROH in 2011 conducted by Pappano with Angela Gheorghiu, Bryn Terfel and Jonas Kauffman. It was honestly one of the most full throttle beautiful experiences of my life. 

What are you looking forward to at St Hilda's?

Atmosphere and inspiration. I’m so thrilled to be asked and I can’t wait to be there and immerse myself in the whole experience, everything from the location itself to the different speakers and the ideas and content to be discussed. Writing is such a strange job to have, to be able to listen and absorb other writers’ thoughts and processes is a huge privilege. I am so looking forward to it. 

D is for Death by Harriet F. Townson (Harriet Evans) Hodder and Stoughton

Meet Dora Wildwood: runaway bride, book lover, and aspiring detective. Likes: solving crimes, peppermint creams, trousers and her own independence. Dislikes: cracked book spines, tyrannical behaviour, beetroot. 1935. Dora's on the first train to London, having smuggled herself out of the house in the middle of the night to escape her impending marriage. But unluckily for her, Dora's fiance is more persistent than most and follows. As Dora alights at Paddington station, she is immediately forced to run from the loathsome Charles Silk-Butters. She ducks into the London Library to hide and it is there, surrounded by books, where she should feel most safe, that Dora Wildwood stumbles across her first dead body. Having been thrown into the middle of a murder scene, it's now impossible to walk away. Indeed, Dora's certain she will prove an invaluable help to the gruff Detective Inspector Fox who swiftly arrives on the scene. For as everyone knows, it's the woman in the room who always sees more than anyone else: and no one more so than Dora herself..

More information about St Hilda's and booking can be found here.

In The St Hilda's Spotlight - Erin Kelly

Name:- Erin Kelly

Job:- Author/ Freelance Writer

Website:-www.erinkelly.co.uk

Facebook: erinkellyauthor

X: @mserinkelly

Instagram: @erinjelly

Introduction:

Erin Kelly is an award-winning novelist. Her debut novel The Poison Tree was a Richard and Judy book club pick and was subsequently turned into a major TV drama. Both her sixth novel He Said/She Said and Stone Mothers (We Know You Know) were also Richard and Judy Book Club pick. Her 2014 novelisation of the Bafta award winning programme Broadchurch is an international best seller. Her latest novel House of Mirrors is a sequel to her debut novel The Poison Tree. 

Current book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing or both)

I’m just finishing my eleventh novel – working title The Night Stairs – which is about a mass vertigo epidemic in a girls’ boarding school.

Favourite book:

Unfair question and you know it.

Which two musicians would you invite to dinner and why?

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Kate Bush. They’re very different writers, both geniuses in their own ways. He’s so prolific and open and geeky about his song-writing, her output is sporadic and she’s an enigma, but I’d love to hear them both break down their creative processes.

How do you relax?

Yoga.

Which book do you wish you had written and why?

The Gruffalo. A juggernaut picture book is like a Christmas number one, it keeps spitting out gold coins. Financial freedom would mean I could slow down and enjoy my career a bit more. It often feels like I’m in the eye of a storm.

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as a writer.

Hating your manuscript isn’t a sign you should quit; it’s part of the process and you will never abandon a book.

How would you describe your latest published book?

The House of Mirrors is a book about families, clothes and true-crime podcasts.

With A Dance to the Music of Crime: the artful crime to murder being the theme at St Hilda's this year, which are you three favourite albums?

Another unfair question!

Hounds of Love by Kate Bush

I’m Your Man by Leonard Cohen

Liege and Lief by Fairport Convention

If you were given the ability to join a band which would it be and why?

Right now, The Last Dinner Party, because they look like they’re really enjoying themselves.

If you were to re-attend a concert which would it be and why

I saw pre-megastar Amy Winehouse play an early version of Black to Black with only a guitarist for accompaniment in a basement bar in Camden. There can’t have been more than forty people in attendance. It was such a small gig, Amy got ready in the toilets, and I helped her with her eyeliner.

What are you looking forward to at St Hilda's?

Learning something new from authors I already know well.

The House of Mirrors by Erin Kelly (Hodder & Stoughton)

One of them has killed before. One of them will kill again. In the sweltering summer of 1997, straight-laced, straight-A student Karen met Biba - a bohemian and impossibly glamorous aspiring actress. A few months later, two people were dead and another had been sent to prison. Having stood by Rex as he served his sentence, Karen is now married to him with a daughter, Alice, who runs a vintage clothing company in London. They're a normal family, as long as they don't talk about the past, never mention the name Biba, and ignore Alice's flashes of dark, dangerous fury. Karen has kept what really happened that summer of '97 hidden deep inside her. Alice is keeping secrets of her own. But when anonymous notes begin to arrive at Alice's shop, it seems the past is about to catch up with them all.

More information about 2024 St Hilda's College Crime Fiction Weekend and how to book online can be found here.

Greg Mosse on Inspiration & Routine

In the room where I write, I’m surrounded by books –yet I’m writing another one myself, looking forward to publication of my first Maisie Cooper Mystery, Murder at Church Lodge, then three more in the series over the following twelve months. This isn't some kind of masterplan. It's just how things have worked out. And I don't expect any of my books to be better than those on my neighbouring bookshelves, those by my wife Kate Mosse, Lee Child, Ngaio Marsh, Anthony Horowitz or Vaseem Kahn. But I know that each one of them will be, for better or worse, a unique story crafted by a unique awareness – my own.

That’s the thing about writing. Whatever you’ve got inside you, ‘for better or worse’ that’s the thing you must express. And that means, for me, getting up at six-thirty in the morning on six days out of seven and writing until 10 am – maybe a little later when I’m in the final throes of a first draft, trying to craft a powerful climax, a single crescendo of dramatic events.

My typing is terrible. About a third of each draft page is underlined in wavy red by the helpful software. Plus, at the beginning of the process, the story is skimpy, incomplete. I’m in a hurry so I abbreviate moments of drama, consigning only the gist to the blank but infinitely scrollable digital page. I forget to say how the characters feel as they do things, or what they are doing while they say things. But that’s okay. I can flesh it out later. I once wrote a surprising eight thousand words in ten hours, then spent the next three days making sense of it, ending up with a no-more-than respectable average of two thousand words a day.

Quite often, though, sitting in my bentwood chair with my computer on a lap tray on my knees, I simply press on regardless, until the computer complains that its memory can no longer keep track of all the live mistakes! This wouldn't matter if I wrote in chapters, but I use one big document. So, I’ve had to set a limit. Every fifty pages or so, I review from the start: the timeline, the weather, the character descriptions; which imagined window the sun shines in at dawn, at noon and at dusk. Then, with the energy of all that co-ordinated attention, I write on.

When I say ‘every fifty pages or so’, I mean after fifty, then 100, then 150, then 200. I don't write on until I am sure that everything adds up – especially at 250, when there’s nothing left but the ending and how it is all about to play out, providing a plausible and satisfying denouement – a climax the reader can believe in. The action, finally, explains itself.

I don’t know precisely where I’m going when I start. I know about a situation and a character, a thing someone wants that they do not have. And someone else whose objectives are mutually exclusive – they cannot both be satisfied. Uncertain precisely what questions the last thirty pages will answer, I know from page one what the end will feel like as the (imaginary) credits roll. If it was a film, I know what music would be playing.

Once I’ve got a complete typescript, I edit it for myself. Then I show it to the genius I married, Kate Mosse, so that I can improve it with her advice. Next, the brilliant agent Luigi Bonomi shows me how to make it better still. Finally, the exceptional editor Beth Wickington gives me broad notes. I take advantage of her insight to improve it again, before she gives me detailed notes that pick up on things we’ve all missed. That gets us to draft five or six and we are finally done – just copy-editing and proofreading to go.

I’ve written books set in the future and in the past. The Maisie Cooper Mysteries begin in southwest Sussex in a cold February 1972 – power cuts, class consciousness and terrible English food. I remember it well. I was eleven and I was there. My memories are so vivid that they seem tactile, that I can smell and taste them. I hope they enrich every page, just as I hope that I have depicted, with respect and understanding, the flawed humans that make up my cast of characters in Murder at Church Lodge ...

... and that Maisie Cooper will work out ‘whodunnit’ before you do 😊In the room where I write, I’m surrounded by books –yet I’m writing another one myself, looking forward to publication of my first Maisie Cooper Mystery, Murder at Church Lodge, then three more in the series over the following twelve months. This isn't some kind of masterplan. It's just how things have worked out. And I don't expect any of my books to be better than those on my neighbouring bookshelves, those by my wife Kate Mosse, Lee Child, Ngaio Marsh, Anthony Horowitz or Vaseem Kahn. But I know that each one of them will be, for better or worse, a unique story crafted by a unique awareness – my own.

That’s the thing about writing. Whatever you’ve got inside you, ‘for better or worse’ that’s the thing you must express. And that means, for me, getting up at six-thirty in the morning on six days out of seven and writing until 10 am – maybe a little later when I’m in the final throes of a first draft, trying to craft a powerful climax, a single crescendo of dramatic events.

My typing is terrible. About a third of each draft page is underlined in wavy red by the helpful software. Plus, at the beginning of the process, the story is skimpy, incomplete. I’m in a hurry so I abbreviate moments of drama, consigning only the gist to the blank but infinitely scrollable digital page. I forget to say how the characters feel as they do things, or what they are doing while they say things. But that’s okay. I can flesh it out later. I once wrote a surprising eight thousand words in ten hours, then spent the next three days making sense of it, ending up with a no-more-than respectable average of two thousand words a day.

Quite often, though, sitting in my bentwood chair with my computer on a lap tray on my knees, I simply press on regardless, until the computer complains that its memory can no longer keep track of all the live mistakes! This wouldn't matter if I wrote in chapters, but I use one big document. So, I’ve had to set a limit. Every fifty pages or so, I review from the start: the timeline, the weather, the character descriptions; which imagined window the sun shines in at dawn, at noon and at dusk. Then, with the energy of all that co-ordinated attention, I write on.

When I say ‘every fifty pages or so’, I mean after fifty, then 100, then 150, then 200. I don't write on until I am sure that everything adds up – especially at 250, when there’s nothing left but the ending and how it is all about to play out, providing a plausible and satisfying denouement – a climax the reader can believe in. The action, finally, explains itself.

I don’t know precisely where I’m going when I start. I know about a situation and a character, a thing someone wants that they do not have. And someone else whose objectives are mutually exclusive – they cannot both be satisfied. Uncertain precisely what questions the last thirty pages will answer, I know from page one what the end will feel like as the (imaginary) credits roll. If it was a film, I know what music would be playing.

Once I’ve got a complete typescript, I edit it for myself. Then I show it to the genius I married, Kate Mosse, so that I can improve it with her advice. Next, the brilliant agent Luigi Bonomi shows me how to make it better still. Finally, the exceptional editor Beth Wickington gives me broad notes. I take advantage of her insight to improve it again, before she gives me detailed notes that pick up on things we’ve all missed. That gets us to draft five or six and we are finally done – just copy-editing and proofreading to go.

I’ve written books set in the future and in the past. The Maisie Cooper Mysteries begin in southwest Sussex in a cold February 1972 – power cuts, class consciousness and terrible English food. I remember it well. I was eleven and I was there. My memories are so vivid that they seem tactile, that I can smell and taste them. I hope they enrich every page, just as I hope that I have depicted, with respect and understanding, the flawed humans that make up my cast of characters in Murder at Church Lodge ...

... and that Maisie Cooper will work out ‘whodunnit’ before you do 😊

© Mosse Futures Ltd 2023

Murder at Church Lodge by Greg Mosse (Hodder & Stoughton) Out Now.

Maise Cooper is no detective, thank you very much, Buch she might just solve a murder. Maisie left the picture-perfect village of Framlington years ago. But when her brother asks for her help out of the blue she soon finds herself back among the windy lanes and open green fields. But it's not the family reunion she hoped for - upon arrival she learns that she's too late. Stephen is dead. And not just dead – murdered. Frustrated by the slow police investigation headed up by handsome Sergeant Wingard, Maisie determines to start asking questions herself. In a village where everyone knows everyone, surely someonehas some information about Stephen. But the longer Maisie stays, and the deeper she digs, the more she begins to sense something sinister at the heart of the village. What secrets are the residents so desperate to keep hidden? And what exactly was her brother going to tell her before his mysterious demise? And when another death rocks the community, Maisie fears that she needs to catch the killer before they catch her..

More information can be found on his website. He can also be found on Twitter @GregMosse and on Facebook.

For all rights enquiries contact Luigi Bonomi – Luigi@lbabooks.com