What happened to your August and September blogs I hear you ask? All I can say in my defence is that the summer has flown by. After the wonderful launch of book 2 – Deadly Deceit in June, I’ve spent the last couple of months on the road, touring around the UK giving talks and doing signings. It’s been a lovely Indian summer, with wall to wall sunshine. I also really enjoyed giving talks at the Knaresborough Festival (August) and the Ripon International Festival (September) where I met some wonderful people. In fact everyone has been so kind about my novels, they have spurred me on to get book 3 finished over coming months. This next one is set in present day London, and goes back in time to Shanghai in the 1980s. That’s a time in Chinese history that I know well, as I worked as a diplomat in Peking for three years in the early 80s and then spent two years 1984/5 in Shanghai helping to open a new British Consulate-General. Although the plot and characters in my novel are fiction (I’m bound by the Official Secrets Act for life), I do describe what it was like living and working in the city at that time. If you follow my blog, I will be talking more about that over coming months and giving some previews of the next book. China was such a fascinating place in the 1980s (and still is!). But, when I arrived in Peking, it was literally four years after the death of Mao Tse Tung and the Cultural Revolution which died with him. It was a privilege to be there at that time, and I look forward to sharing some insights into that time in history in my blog. I also give lots of talks, so do come along and say hello if I pitch up somewhere near you in the next few months. And, if you haven’t already done so, do sign up to my newsletter (on the button above), as I will be sending out one or two newsletters to tell you about promotions, book giveaways, some Christmas gifts, and new releases. Now, though, holidays over, I’m back in the saddle and getting down to work.