I told you I was bad at marketing ...

So bad that within a week of posting a blog trumpeting my latest book, I changed the cover. I do it just to confuse you.

Anyway, here's the latest iteration. I decided to go for something cooler, having spent a lot of time browsing books in my genre to see which covers I liked. I thought I liked the multi-coloured, action-packed whiz-bang ones ... but when it came to it, the covers that appealed to me most were ones that created an atmosphere with a strong graphic and tasteful typography.

So that's what I've moved towards.

The photograph is actually of Aleppo in Syria, and while the city itself isn't featured in the book, the country and its devastation plays a large part in how the story unfolds.

Catching up on important news

It seems I forgot to update this blog with info about my new book The Innocent Dead. How stupid is that? So much time spent on the website and FB and Twitter ... some things just fall off the back.

I should also mention that in the interim, The Bleak has won its category in the Chanticleer Reviews CLUE competition - noir/private eye. I win all sorts of prizes for that - a free review (which otherwise costs a fortune), a free run on Bublish, which is a Twitter advertising campaign; and various buntings and badges. Also, it's quite prestigious. So that's nice.

I'll shortly be starting work on the next book, a non-Sam Dyke crime thriller based very loosely on a true story. Why make things up when you can copy real life? ;)