... gone tomorrow. Sorry, just couldn't resist. Due to feeling much better today (hurrah!), I have been editing for Britain and have actually finished the Air Kingdom section in The Gifting. Well, huzzahs all round and somebody crack open the caviare. As it were. Now all I have to do is think about what the bloody hell Annyeke does next. I think she may nearly have cracked the mystery, by George. She'd better have as she only really has two sections of her story left before the finale ...

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In my dream I had been called into the offices of my publisher, Faber and Faber, to have a meeting with my editor, Walter Donohue. Walter began the meeting by saying, “This isn’t about your book. I have something to tell you. You don’t know it but you have secretly been recruited into the police ...” He showed me my badge and all the paperwork that went with it. He revealed that he had been working for the police himself for a long time. Indeed, his true role was as a recruiting sergeant--his work as a crime-fiction editor at Faber was really a front, a means of discovering writers who had potential to become detectives in the service of the police.

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.... to A Dangerous Man who was published on this day last year. Well, gosh - one year old today, Michael. Who would have thought it? It's been an up and down year, to be honest - I've been thrilled with the good reviews and general positive response to the book. No, more than thrilled actually. Hugely grateful. I'm not sure I'll ever write anything quite that heartfelt and ... well ... raw again. It feels good to have done it at least once in my writing life. On the downside, I've sold (as of the end of December) 116 books, and I was hoping for more. I'm learning to cut my cloth etc etc, however, so that can only be a good thing. But hey not too much - it is after all pure ego that keeps writers going at all!...

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I suspect that 'shu' is one of those Chinese animal names that doesn't distinguish between similar species - like 'yang', my own Chinese Zodiac sign, which can be a sheep or a goat. It's surprising, really, if there's a choice in the matter that anyone should choose 'rat' over 'mouse', especially in London with its plague-ridden past.


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... we're back from glorious Cornwall! Have had a fabulous week staying at the Old Coastguard Hotel, which was a great place even though it turned out to be one of those hotels who only change the menu weekly. Sigh. Why are more and more hotels doing this? I appreciate the need to manage the budget, but it really discriminates against those guests who stay more than a couple of nights. Mind you, I had a serious nirvana moment when sampling the Jerusalem artichoke veloute (sorry, no accent) starter - which was an amazing mix of creamy soup, parmesan, truffle and quail eggs. Sounds disgusting, I know, but tastes like the best thing ever. I even came near to tears and was hell-bent on marrying the chef (Barnaby, if you're asking) and having his children. But for some reason Lord H wasn't too keen on that idea. Though he did like the soup ...

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My lovely god-daughter, Lilia, and her mother have been staying with me for a couple of days and yesterday we spent a few hours at the London Wetland Centre. The weather was as perfect as possible for the time of year – crisp, blue-skied and sunny – and the Centre itself was starkly beautiful. I am always amazed that a place like this, 43 hectares of wetlands – wide open stretches of water and grassy walkways, teeming with wildlife – can exist in a corner of one of the busiest cities in the world. I love taking visitors along there to see the surprise in their faces when they enter the observatory, a glass-walled room, two storeys high, that looks out across the main lake. On a day like yesterday, so bright and clear, the view really is breathtaking and each new visitor’s astonishment at the sight mirrors my own. If any non-Londoners out there are planning a trip to the capital soon, then I recommend that you pencil a visit to the Wetland Centre into your itinerary. And if there are any Londoners reading who haven’t yet paid it a call, then what are you waiting for?


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In November I reviewed Paul Torday's debut book, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

The hardback edition was No 1 in the spring of 2007, and the paperback was one of that year's Richard and Judy Summer reads. It has since sold in 19 countries and won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for Comic Fiction.

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I’m not actually online at home at the moment (drag) so I apologise for long lack of posts. My internet provider is clearly in league with Satan. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, just it has its drawbacks when it affects me! Moving house at the end of Feb and will return with gusto then.

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Right now, my brain is a junk yard. I have the definite impression that there are hidden treasures lurking here, if I could only just clear the lumber and the faux antiquities, the slag-heap of yellowing papers out of the way. Something priceless might be hidden, a lost Vermeer or another of Nabokov's forgotten masterpieces. Until I start digging, I can dream.


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So, a post that's not about me for a change.

It's an interview with top author, and top bloke, Roger (sometimes N) Morris, whose latest book, A Vengeful Longing (Faber and Faber) was released earlier in the month.

So, over to Roger...

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