After our sell-out event at Chiswick Library earlier in the year, it was a great pleasure last week to do a second panel discussion with the authors (L–R) Louise Burfitt-Dons, Emma Curtis and Amanda Robson, to another packed house – this time in Staines.

(Or ‘St. Aines’, as an old friend of mine who lived there many years ago, and was from Staines, used to call it.)

It was a beautiful spring evening on the Staines riverside, and we received a really warm welcome. The event had been brilliantly marketed to book groups in this part of Surrey, and once again a fantastic and very engaged audience gathered to hear Amanda, Emma, Louise and I speak about our novels, our influences and approaches, about writing in general, and about each of our very different relationships with the crime genre. We each have new books out, so there is lots to talk about, but I think this particular panel works so well because we are all coming at crime fiction from such different angles, e.g. Emma Curtis is founder of the newly-formed Psychological Suspense Authors Association, Amanda Robson is a Sunday Times Bestseller, Louise Burfitt-Dons is a screenwriter and anti-bullying campaigner who writes topical political thrillers, while I spoke about my interest in an alternative lineage of more experimental detective novels.

I learned a lot, as usual, and the response from the audience was incredibly positive.

After a bit of Q&A, the conversations continued over tea and biscuits and the signing of books. It was great fun. I hope we can do it again sometime.

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