Welcome to my latest newsletter. This one is in two parts: first is the actual “news” bit, followed by a “letter” where I’ll talk about the recent Can You Solve the Murder? Live tour, which was a unique experience.
First, though, I’m enormously chuffed to report that Alex Rider: Snakehead has won the Scribe award for best graphic novel!
The Scribes are run by IAMTW, the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, to recognise outstanding work in the field of tie-ins to existing properties (If you’ve ever read a movie novelisation, or a Star Wars comic, those are examples of tie-ins).
The shortlist featured some truly great work, so I absolutely didn’t expect to win. Thanks to the judges, and congratulations to the other winners!
The next Dog Sitter Detective book has been announced, and this time we’re doing something different…
(Click through for a video!)
The Dog Sitter Detective’s Christmas Tail will go on sale in November, just in time for the holidays.
It's almost Christmas, and Gwinny Tuffel's thoughts are on what she'll buy for DCI Birch (retired) and whether she can adopt another furry friend. But sorting through her late father's papers leads her into his mysterious past, pointing to an enigmatic liaison now living in a Somerset commune. Gwinny and Birch find themselves unexpectedly snowed in with a group of retired spies, along with an energetic Cocker Spaniel, and embroiled in a murder case. Will they uncover the culprit and escape in time for Christmas?
Believe it or not, I didn’t actually intend to write a Christmas book 😅 It just sort of happened that way.
You see, I write each of Gwinny’s adventures as a different flavour in the crime genre. The first book was a classic body in the library; the second a closed-circle murder; and the third a locked-room mystery. Now this fourth book tackles the “help, we’re snowed-in with a killer” scenario. And where there’s snow, at least in this hemisphere, Christmas is never far away…
People are often surprised to learn that, despite a long career in comics and graphic novels, I haven’t written for 2000AD. I grew up reading the comic; almost every other British comics writer of my generation has worked for it; and I even count two former editors among my friends. Yet I’ve never graced its pages myself… until now.
Released just in time for Halloween, The Judge Death Mega Special celebrates 45 years since the iconic villain’s first appearance in 2000AD.
My contribution is “Fade to Grey”: a story of Judge Mortis, one of Death’s fellow Dark Judges. Mortis is often overlooked in the villain’s pantheon, but (probably to nobody’s surprise) I find him fascinating. When editor Matt Smith asked me to choose between Judges Fire or Mortis for my story, it was an easy decision.
“Fade to Grey” will be illustrated by the amazing Lee Carter, and I can’t wait for you all to see it. (Incredibly, this isn’t the first time Lee and I have worked together – turns out he illustrated one of my earliest published pieces, for Arcane magazine in 1996!)
Last week I completed the book tour of Can You Solve the Murder? Live, an event with a difference.
There are still a couple of festival dates left – the Beverley Festival of Words in Sep, and Authors in Oundle in Oct – not to mention the possibility of doing it all again in December with a new, Christmas-themed mystery. But this main portion of the tour is done, and it’s been an amazing experience upon which to reflect.
Figuring out exactly how to promote Can You Solve the Murder? (from hereon “CYSTM”) was the first hurdle.
When I first discussed PR events with publishers Transworld, I realised that this isn’t the sort of book where I could just open it and read a random chapter to an audience. That simply wouldn’t make sense, and more importantly wouldn’t demonstrate to the audience that this is an interactive book. But I also couldn’t start reading from the beginning and ask them to collectively make choices, because the first chapter alone – which is vital to understanding the context of the mystery – takes 15-20 minutes to read!
So instead I suggested we run interactive events, to promote an interactive book. Sure, they said, what are you envisaging? To which I had, um, no answer 😅
But after some time thinking about it, I realised I could approximate the experience of the book by making a new mystery, specially designed for these events, which I’d run like a parlour game and the audience would try to solve. I could introduce some characters and locations from the book, but place them in a completely different murder case. A ‘parallel world murder’, if you will.
Everyone loved the idea… so then I had to actually write it! That was an extra couple of days’ work, but I was happy with the result.
As with CYSTM itself, my background in games and interactive narrative design was invaluable here. I effectively had to design a game, ensuring it was simple, balanced, and fun… while also showcasing the sort of writing audiences would experience in the book.
Transworld staffers playtested it in the office, and gave me invaluable feedback. I tweaked it accordingly, then we tested it again on a group of journalists at the book’s promotional dinner in London. No tougher crowd than a bunch of hacks! But they enjoyed it, and I was confident we could now show CYSTM Live to the world.
One of the next obstacles was persuading bookstores this was a good idea. Fortunately, many understood what we wanted to do, and knew an event with a difference is a good way of persuading people to attend. There’s nothing wrong with traditional author events, but I know (because they told me!) that upending the format like this attracted some people who might not have attended otherwise.
So I spent most of June on trains, travelling around the country – from Edinburgh to Southampton, from Chelmsford to Leeds, and beyond – with Transworld publicist Emma, who did a fantastic job working out the logistics, booking trains and hotels, and assisting at the events themselves by handing out audience materials.
(Fortunately, as those who follow my #TrainLife social media posts know, I’m a big fan of train travel!)
We also added extra stops along the way where I called in at stores to sign their stock. I love meeting booksellers, and even more so when they tell me the book is selling really well for them 😉
Part of the logistical challenge was to ensure we had enough handout materials for each audience, and that venues knew the event required seating at tables, rather than theatre-style rows. This meant we often wound up staging it in the Waterstones café – slightly unusual, but it worked fine and made for a good, relaxed atmosphere.
I also asked Transworld to make up some stickers and badges, reading “I Solved the Murder”, which we’d give out to everyone who solved the case. I couldn’t have predicted how popular this would be! Literally every event, when I finished the introductory spiel with, “…And if you get it right, you win a badge” the audience all cried a delighted, “Ooh!”
Things didn’t always run entirely smoothly. One date was at Bradford Literature Festival, where I’ve appeared before, but never running an event like this. I had no idea how many people would turn out, and anticipated it would be like some of the better Waterstones events, maybe 30-40 people…
That’s just one half of Bradford city hall chambers. More than eighty people showed up.
I didn’t have anywhere near enough materials printed for an audience of that size 😅 So the Bradford event was chaotic, and I had to improvise a lot! But in a way I think that nervous energy helped. Everyone had a great time, and the festival has asked me to return and host it again next year.
In fact we had a great response everywhere we went, and many of the stores asked us to come around and do it again – specifically at Christmas, both as a fun holiday event, but also because they saw the potential of CYSTM as a Christmas gift book.
Of course, to do that I’ll need to write yet another murder mystery, this time probably involving Santa…
…Which brings me to the future. A mystery with a solution can’t run forever, and those who attended the events in June/July quite understandably won’t want to play the same mystery again.
So the plan is to run the current scenario a couple more times at those festivals I mentioned, then finally to host it as a podcast on The Incomparable Game Show. Regular readers will know I often appear on the show as either a host or contestant, so when the network head asked if I’d like to run it for Game Show it seemed very fitting.
Once that podcast is published the scenario will be effectively spoiled for everyone. But I have to write a new case for Christmas anyway, so it’s fine.
Of course, I’ll also have to write a new scenario for events to promote CYSTM book 2… and then perhaps yet another Christmas one, for 2026… I appear to have made something of a rod for my own back!
So the final question is: was it all worth it? These events were hard work – not just designing the game and writing the scenario, but also running them. I essentially performed a one-man show every night, albeit with great support from all the stores and from Transworld.
It was absolutely worth it. Every audience went away happy. I sold a LOT of books. Every store events manager was delighted with both turnout and audience reception (and every author knows, a staffer who likes your book can do wonders for sales). People came away telling us how much fun they’d had, and spreading the word about the book on social media, which in this day and age is invaluable.
Ultimately it was a great way to introduced audiences to CYSTM, in a way that reflected the book and engaged them in ways most author events simply don’t. I’m very proud of what we achieved… and I look forward to doing it all over again 😉
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