Who Killed Little Johnny Gill? A Victorian True Crime Murder Mystery Bradford, late December 1888. Young Johnny Gill leaves his loving family to help milkman William Barrett on his daily round. As his mother Mary Ann bids the lad goodbye, she has no idea she’ll never see her son alive again. When the boy fails…
Category: Novels
‘No Good Deed’ by MP McDonald
No Good Deed: A Psychological Thriller When photographer Mark Taylor finds a camera that takes unusual photos, he realises he can stop bad things happening – but there’s one disaster he’s unable to change: 9/11. Taken into custody, Taylor is not charged with any crime and doesn’t get the chance to have his day in…
‘Elizabeth, Just 16’ by Cecilia Paul
Elizabeth: Just Sixteen When teenager Elizabeth Appleton seeks medical advice to find out why her periods haven’t started, she is dealt a shocking blow – she can never have children. It transpires she has Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome (MRKH) – a congenital disorder affecting the female reproductive tract. The discovery throws the young woman into turmoil, questioning…
‘The Plague’ by Albert Camus
The Plague In the town of Oran, rats begin to appear – in the houses, in the streets and scrabbling around the dustbins. But the creatures bring with them a deadly plague that consumes and contaminates the population, forcing them into their beds, to the hospitals and finally the morgue. The central character, Dr Rieux,…
Rules for Writing (and Other Variables)
A few years ago, American novelist Colson Whitehead published a piece outlining his simple rules for writing (New York Times July 26, 2012). While I don’t completely agree with him, I do have my own ideas on the thorny subject of what writers should and shouldn’t do: 1: Show and Tell. No, actually. While I…
‘Old Friends and New Enemies’ by Owen Mullen
Old Friends and New Enemies When Glasgow PI Charlie Cameron is engaged to find a missing husband, his contacts soon lead to a body in the mortuary. But it isn’t the one he was expecting. Shocked to discover an old friend has been murdered, Charlie sets out to find the killer, but the path to…
Branding Schmanding – Indie Author Identity
There are a lot of statistics tossed around about how important book covers are, and while we could argue percentages all day, I reckon most people would agree it’s the image on a book’s cover that plays the biggest part in the decision-making process when it comes to parting with our cash. But how much…
‘End As An Assassin’ by Lex Lander
End As An Assassin With the killing of a sleazy drug baron, hit man André Warner completes his final contract and heads for Geneva where he hopes to begin a comfortable retirement. Then on route to Monaco, he meets young and beautiful divorcee Gina, and finds himself contemplating a different future from the one he’d…
‘Raven Black’ by Ann Cleeves
Raven Black The beginning of a new year brings death to Shetland when the body of a young woman is found lying in the snow. But the murder also sparks memories of another girl who disappeared years before, and the focus of the community falls, once again, on simple-minded loner Magnus Tait. The police meanwhile,…
How to Write an Unfinished Novel
Not everything that ends up as a novel starts out as a novel. As Stephen King has said, you don’t know what a piece of writing will become until you write it. Might be a short story, might be a novella , or it might be an epic novel. And if it doesn’t go…
Colin Garrow 