My 2024

That’ll be 2024, then. Its tea’s oot and its pie’s cauld, as we say in Scotland.

It’s been an eventful year for your present narrator. I published three books and wrote three, which kept me pretty busy at the old keyboard.

Honestly, by November I felt I’d written my full complement of words for the next decade. 

Published were A Grave for a Thief, the third in the Jonas Flynt/Company of Rogues historical thriller series from Canelo. It came out in hardback earlier in the year and then paperback in late summer.

The sixth Rebecca Connolly thriller from Polygon hit the shelves next. The Hollow Mountain was also longlisted for the MacIlvanney Award, meaning three out of the six have been nominated (the other two were Thunder Bay and A Rattle of Bones, in case you were wondering).

(And while I’m boasting, it marked the fifth time I’ve been on the longlist. The other two were Open Wounds, and An Honourable Thief.)

The fourth Jonas Flynt thriller, A Thief’s Blood, completed my published hat-trick. It’s out now in hardback and in paperback later this year.

It was the first of the books I wrote this year, along with the seventh – and final – Rebecca Connolly, currently titled The Other Side of Fear. Such things can change – The Hollow Mountain wasn’t called that when I wrote it! (For the record, I still prefer my original title – Tigers in the Dark – but that’s showbiz.) It will be published by Polygon later this year.

The final book of the year was completed days into 2025 – Ship of Thieves is the sixth Jonas Flynt adventure and it takes him out of his London comfort zone. He has travelled before – to Edinburgh, to the north of England, but this time he’s off to the Caribbean.

It will be published by Canelo in August.

I attended a few festivals, interviewed a few authors. Even Carry on Sleuthing had an outing – and a star-studded event it was too.

We were invited to appear at Bute Noir, the annual crime writing festival on the Island of Bute, and many of the authors taking part agreed to take roles alongside regular cast members Caro Ramsay and myself (Michael J Malone was sunning himself in foreign climes at the time).

These included Mark Billingham, Christopher Brookmyre, CL Taylor, Alexandra Sokoloff, Ed James, Lin Anderson, Luca Veste and – wait for it – Sir Ian Rankin!

There was also a special appearance by Rothesay museum’s Anne Speirs.

I don’t know how many of them regretted the decision to take part but, troupers all, they got on with the job and delivered in spades.

Which was also how Caro and I shovelled in the awful jokes.

The original gang – Caro, Michael, Theresa Talbot and myself – got together again a few weeks later to present another of the Carry on Sleuthing series in Clarkston Library. We’ve been there before. You would have thought they’d have learned their lesson.

Thank you to them all for sacrificing their dignity in the name of cheap laughs.

Personally speaking (or writing), it was a time of change.

For those of you reading this and don’t know, I was married between Christmas and New Year!

Sarah owns a bookshop, the Book Nook in Stewarton, Ayrshire (Independent Bookshop of the Year 2024 for Scotland!), and we met first when I took part in a festival she organised back in 2022, although it was the following year that we started stepping out, as nobody in Scotland says.

Bookshop owner meets author. Romance blossoms. Film rights are available.

So, all in all, an eventful year. This year is set to be somewhat quiet, at least so far. I have the Rebecca and Jonas books to edit in the next few weeks and one more of the latter to write. 

Frankly, I don’t know what to do with myself.