I was reprimanded at the age of 10 for taking Thunderball into school as my book for the ‘own choice’ reading period… I can date it exactly because I still have the headmaster’s remarks on my school report. Oh, well. Years later I was amused to see several of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, Thunderball…

Over on the Scouting New York blog, this post about the impossible geography of Kubrick’s settings in The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut triggered a memory from 1997. I was in production at Pinewood Studios when Eyes Wide Shut was filming. My office was in the long main building but on the other side of…

Released March 25th. Buy my episode and get all the others thrown in absolutely free! Amazing bargain. Find it here

If you picked up The Boat House during the 48-hour giveaway – and it cheers me that so many of you did – I hope you’ll enjoy the read. Did you know that, a year or two after the book came out, it was almost a movie with Jude Law and Milla Jovovich? My agent…

If you prefer, you can skip the story and go straight down to the link for the free book. Otherwise… In 1984 I travelled to Finland and took the train to Leningrad, as St Petersburg was then known. I was alone, with a backpack and not much money. I’d been living by writing for four…

Well, I gave Red Widow a try… despite a cool title and Radha Mitchell and production values to die for, I couldn’t swallow it. It’s like Miss America married into Gogol Bordello and they all set up shop in Marin Country as drug-dealing Beverly Hillbillies. Then there’s a gang war and Mrs America starts packing…

See this? You wouldn’t get away with it today, would you? And yet, be honest… there’s something about that ‘sixties adventure-fantasy Dolce Vita that calls to us still. So what, if none of us actually looked or lived like that, or knew anyone who did? So what, if those who attempted to live the life…

It’s Lucy Hay’s fault. She asked for some twitter-length quotes for her forthcoming Writing and Selling Thriller Screenplays book so I went through my folder of old interview responses – because yes, I hoard such thoughts like unspent pennies – and picked out anything that might fit the bill. And now I’m left with this…

As if you needed reminding… In the years following the Great War, a skeptical conjuror and a spiritualist medium merge their interests to tour the regional lecture halls of the United Kingdom. This eBook novella is a free download, offered to coincide with US paperback publication of The Bedlam Detective. After the promotional period you’ll…

First House of Cards, then Arrested Development… with Netflix now making its own shows for direct download sale, a complete season at a time, I’ve been reminded of a thought that I had back in 2009. I said at the time that I had mixed feelings about the jail terms and fines passed by the…