Other writing
As well as writing crime novels, I continue to write for other media. After Henry, the sitcom I wrote for both radio and television, is, I’m glad to say, frequently repeated on the wonderful Radio 4 Extra, along with other of my series like No Commitments, Smelling of Roses and Foul Play.
On Radio 4 I am delighted that my actor detective Charles Paris is having a new lease of life, with the wonderful Bill Nighy playing the part in excellent adaptations of my novels by Jeremy Front. Some of these are available as BBC Audio Books.
I also regularly write an annual short play for the Arundel Festival Drip Action Theatre Trail.
Others of my stage plays which are regularly performed by amateur dramatic societies include ‘Murder in Play’ and ‘Silhouette’ (both in Samuel French acting editions) and ‘Murder with Ghosts’ (published by StageScripts.
So I hope to continue to keep the same variety in the stuff I write. Crime novels are enormous fun, but writing books is a solitary activity. Writing scripts to be performed by actors is much more sociable. So are those moments when I actually do a bit of acting myself. And, like all writers, I do need to get out of the house more!
Major Bricket and the Circus Corpse
Meet Major Bricket, an infrequent resident of Highfield House in Stunston Peveril, Suffolk. In the past the Major's work assignments, frequently in foreign countries, have prevented him from spending much time there and as a result, there is an air of mystery around him while everyone in the village speculates on the nature of his occupation.
But now the Major has retired and has come home for good in his open-topped little red sports car... and what a homecoming it is, for lying spreadeagled on his lawn in the summer sunshine is the corpse of a clown.
The circus is in Stunston Peveril for the annual village fair, yet none of their quota of clowns is missing - or at least, nobody is saying. Could the body be that of an unfortunate early guest at the village's highlight of the social calendar, the Fincham Abbey Costume Ball? Fortunately Major Bricket's past clandestine career means that he is now very well placed to solve the mystery of the dead clown on his camomile lawn...