Books
I've always loved stories and storytellers - from my early days with the Hardy Boys,
through teenage years with Stephen King and then discovering crime fiction as an
adult. But, writing never seemed like a "real" career and I was drawn towards becoming
a lawyer because it seemed like it might be exciting and rewarding (in all senses
of the word).
So, I spent my late teens and early twenties at Strathclyde University in Glasgow
getting a law degree and preparing to become a criminal defence lawyer. Except,
my career path went off in a slightly different direction and I now practice civil
litigation - where companies (and individuals) sue one another over money.
I kept reading - moving on to James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard, Raymond Chandler, Michael
Connelly and Robert Crais to name only a few of my favourites. You'll see that I
developed a taste for American thrillers, rather than UK based writers. And I did
the occasional bit of writing here and there - a chapter that I thought might fit
into a bigger story somewhere along the line. Or a brief scene of character description.
I guess the seed that eventually grew into my first published novel, Daisychain,
was always there - it just needed cultivation.
In between times I got married and then had a daughter - a Millennium baby in 2000.
And it was after that life changing experience that I sat down at my shiny new laptop
in 2001 to seriously have a go at writing a novel. I wanted to write an American
thriller and I decided to go with a large metropolitan area that had not featured
much in the books I had read - Denver, Colorado. Its location also suited the story
I wanted to tell. After a few false starts, I eventually got going and that book
was finished in around 2004 - after a trip to Denver in 2003 helped me close it
off. You can see some photos from that trip on the Gallery page of this site.
I got an agent for the book pretty quickly and thought that I was on my way to becoming
a bestseller. Sadly, that proved a false dawn and it wasn't until 2009 that I finally
saw a book on the shelves. Daisychain was the second novel I wrote after the first
one failed to find a publisher, despite the sterling efforts of my then agent. Maybe
some day it'll find its way into print.
Meantime, I had a second daughter and decided to learn the guitar - another early
ambition never before fulfilled.
So now I live by my three 'Rs' - Reading, wRiting and Rock. If you check out the
videos of my guitar playing on the Gallery page, you'll see that it's the first
two that I should stick to.
April 2010 is the next chapter in my writing career, when Fallout is published.
It's a direct follow up to Daisychain with the same cast of characters. And I've
recently signed a contract for two more books in the series - with No 3 already
started.
Where the story goes from here, who knows . . .