Forthcoming Events
For obvious reasons, you are to be spared me in person for the foreseeable future, but I have a number of online events lined up, so you can listen to me talking nonsense from the privacy of your own home. You don’t even have to get dressed. Apologies in advance for the occasional glimpse of the spooky ventriloquist’s doll that shares my office…
September 17 : Budleigh Litfest
5.00 PM. In conversation with Peter James
September 18: Bloody Scotland
9.30 PM. Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers: Behind The Music
September 20: Bloody Scotland
6.00 PM. In conversation with John Connolly
September 26: Poisoned Pen
8.00 PM. In conversation with Richard Osman
October 9: Cheltenham Literary Festival
4.00 PM. A Good Listen: The Making Of An Audiobook
Check websites for details of registration/log-on etc.
And finally, free and gratis, here is my conversation about Cry Baby and other matters with the mighty Lee Child. It was recorded recently under the auspices of the fabulous Poisoned Pen bookstore and it’s well worth watching, if only to marvel at Lee’s enormous pencils!
News
I was looking forward to 2020 enormously and why wouldn’t I be? It was going to be a significant year for me as it would see the publication of my twentieth novel. There were all manner of special events and celebrations planned.
What could possibly go wrong…?
Well, the book has come out and not being able to be out there on the road with it, showing off on stage and gobbing off about it at festivals is, in the scheme of things, a minor inconvenience. These days, I do my showing-off online (see left for an example) and it’s not like writers need an excuse to spend all day in their pyjamas, so I’m honestly not complaining. I hope, more than anything, that these strange and worrying times have not been too unkind to you or your loved ones…
Thanks to all those who shelled out to buy Their Little Secret when it came out earlier this year in paperback. On August 4th, the new Tom Thorne novel, Cry Baby, that TWENTIETH book I mentioned, was published by Grove Atlantic. It’s one I’m hugely excited about, not just because of the significant anniversary, but because it’s a prequel to my debut novel, Sleepyhead. As if this were not enough to have you all a-twitter with excitement, a swanky anniversary edition of Sleepyhead was published in April, complete with a new foreword from none other than Lee Child. There were only 1000 signed and numbered copies available and I hope that those of you to whom such things are of interest managed to get hold of one.
The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers – the rawking beat-combo featuring myself, Val McDermid, Stuart Neville, Chris Brookmyre, Doug Johnstone and Luca Veste – were all set to play some big shows this year, but those, like almost everything else, are currently on hold. We are gagging to get back on stage together and rest assured that, first chance we get, we will be living out our rock-star fantasies once again. Should you fancy a glimpse of us murdering songs for fun, there is footage of us performing on a TV show on the SHOWING OFF page of this very website. Elvis Costello is yet to issue a formal complaint, which we’re taking as a very good sign…
With little else to do during lockdown but write, I have as good as finished the next book, a standalone thriller that will be published in July 2021. I can’t say too much about it at the moment and I’m keeping the title under my hat. I don’t mean that the book is called Under My Hat and that I’m keeping it. I mean…oh, you know. Currently, I’m kicking around ideas for the book that will follow the book that isn’t called Under My Hat (actually, that title is growing on me) and getting frustrated that development on a US TV show based on my novel Rush Of Blood is yet one more thing that is on Corona-hiatus. Oh, and I’ve become obsessed with doing jigsaws. And I’m reading a lot…
I’m also wasting far too much time on social media and it remains the quickest and easiest way to make contact if you want to send a message or tell me off about something. Come and say hello.
OK, that’s quite enough yapping. I’ve got a jigsaw to finish.
TWITTER: @MarkBillingham
