Background to my Writing

Writing is rewriting. A cliché, but anyone who has had to write an article, an account, a short story or a novel knows how much redrafting has to take place.  The real work begins after the first draft.

On a lighter note what do I bring to my fiction writing? A love of languages and travelling, a photographic eye, a love of observing people and situations, a keen interest in history.

I attended many workshops by well-know authors at literary festivals. They taught me that there is only one way to write - your own. Some authors plot every move before they start writing, every backstory of their characters. Others don't - they take a more organic approach to creating their book. Both can learn from each other. 

To my surprise I find that once I create a character and start writing , the character leads me in directions I had not anticipated. So, I guess I belong to the organic group above. 

French academics impose on their students an analytical method called 'commentaire de texte'. It involves  looking at every sentence and searching for underlying meaning or references. In my case a 'commentaire de texte' would reveal that my work is peppered with little incidents or scenes which I have observed in real life around Europe and injected into the story to provide authenticity and local colour.

My first novel, Joker in the Pack, is a spy novel set in England and the dramatic city of Prague. A former student radical in the 1960s, now a Labour Cabinet Minister, asks to see the file MI5 kept on him at the time. He immediately receives threatening emails. Whoever informed on him in those student days will go to any lengths to prevent their identity being revealed. 

I then discovered a French detective who worked in the French Art Fraud Squad. He took me all over Europe. The Commissaire Pierre Rousseau series so far runs to seven cases. For details go to the next page in the menu.

The fight against art theft is a theme becoming increasingly topical, with the growing pressure on museums to return works of art taken by force from their countries of origin, either by colonial powers or by modern looters of protected sites.. 

I also took on the challenge of writing a novel not in my native language. Le Grand Mystère de Gornac is set in a small village in South Western France where events between the world wars lead to emigration to the province of Québec in French Canada. The English translation is entitled A Local French Affair.

Details of all my books, and language study books can be found on the pages accessed via the side menu.