New Blog

Please note that this blog has now been transferred to a new, more colourful site at http://maypeter.wordpress.com/

Follow the link for all my latest news and thoughts...

Extraordinary People (of the worst kind)

I don't usually involve myself in political comment. But I am moved by incredulity to condemn, without qualification, the actions of the overgrown schoolboys who currently run the UK, in withdrawing funding from the British Film Council - effectively bringing about it's demise, along with the demise of the British film industry itself. In concert with wielding the axe on the Health Protection Agency (vital to tracing the sources of infectious diseases - I am publishing a book, shortly, on the subject), these morons demonstrate at every turn their unsuitability to govern.

Here is an interesting article on the subject of the importance of the British Film Council

Of Mice and Men

I am moved by momentous events to write an extra-curricular blog.

After having successfully (well, almost) negotiated two months of events throughout the US, and a hectic French schedule in Lyon, we ended up yesterday in the delightful Romanesque Mediterranean town of Frejus for an event at the Librairie Charlemagne - a prestigious local bookstore.

We were met by the delightful Valerie Mouton, a former radio journalist who was going to host the event, and lunched in a local restaurant before visiting the oldest cathedral in Europe.

When we turned up for the event itself yesterday evening, the bookstore owner hurried out to let us into the store's private parking area, just off the main street. To do this he had to lower a two-foot high, nine-inch diameter post sunk into the sidewalk. This was a highly sophisticated process that involved jumping up and down on it until it stayed down.

With traffic piling up behind me I waited patiently until it was down, and I was waved forward. Unfortunately, as I passed over it, the damned thing suddenly took it into its head to rise up again. There was a terrible crashing and grinding, and I jammed on the brakes, effectively to find my car impaled from below on the pillar. No way to get it off.

And I had an audience awaiting me in the store!

Mindful of the fact that I had a meeting with my French publisher two hours away at Arles at 9am the following morning, plus twelve hours of driving over the next two days to get me to the book festival at Le Havre, I abandoned my poor, impaled Renault Scenic, to do my duty in the store.

As I spoke of research and inspiration, a mechanic arrived to raise my car up on two jacks, while simultaneously inserting a third between the pillar and the underside of the vehicle to force the pillar down. It took him an hour-and-a-half to free it. My concentration was less than perfect - a little like my French!

Now I cannot take to the road this morning without having the car checked for damage and safety. Even assuming all is ok, I will be several hours late for my appointment at Arles, and the leisurely overnight I had anticipated at home to break the two day drive that lies ahead, will be reduced to a handful of hours.

If there is a problem with the car, God knows how it will go...

In the words of a famous Scot: The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley.

A certain Anglo-Saxon word of mediaeval origin comes to mind!

Homeward Bound

A little over two months ago I was sitting on a bench on the platform of the railway station ten minutes from my home in south-west France. It was cold, it was wet, it was still winter. I was excited, stressed, depressed, all at the same time.

I was waiting for a train that would take me to Paris, and from there to the United States, where ahead of me lay two months of touring, talks and travel, to promote three new books which had come out at the start of the year.

I was daunted. And, to be honest, if I could have turned around there and then, and gone straight back home, nothing would have made me happier.

A song kept going around and around in my head.

I’m sitting in a railway station got a ticket for my destination...
... And every stop is neatly planned for a laundry and a one-night stand...

Homeward bound, I wish I was... homeward bound...

Ok, so I amended the lyrics a little, but you get the point.

Two months on, here I am sitting at Gate B41 at Dulles International Airport in Washington DC. I have given more than 20 talks at events in bookstores and libraries all over the country, culminating at Borders at Bailey’s Crossroads just outside of DC, and the LaPrade Library in Richmond Virginia.

I find it hard to believe that it was eight weeks ago that I flew into Minneapolis, jumped into a rental car, and drove immediately to Uncle Edgar’s bookstore to sign the piles of books that Jeff Hatfield had waiting for me. Since when I have lost my coat and found it, lost my cellphone and (miraculously) found it, lost my voice and found it, and lost my heart to a dog called Odin. I also lost my way in the dark of southern California, and almost got shot. In the end I very nearly lost my sanity - and I’m still looking for it.

But here I am, finally... homeward bound. And I have that song going around and around in my head again. As they call my flight...

Powerfully Close

Okay, so where was I? Oh, yes, Connecticut. So where the hell am I now? Damned if I know!

Wait, let me take a peek out of the window. Draw back the curtains just a touch. Ohhhhh, yes. I remember now. I’m in Oxford. No, not Oxford, England. Oxford, Maryland. On Chesapeake Bay. Just about 40 miles from the White House in Washington DC.

The British (or, “you”, as someone put it to us yesterday) sailed into Chesapeake Bay just over 200 years ago on a fateful expedition to set Washington alight, igniting the war that would wrest North America from colonial hands and establish the United States.

But this quaint backwater, with it’s English overtones (and undertones), could hardly present a more different face of modern-day America. The Oxford Inn, where we are staying, is like an old-fashioned hotel in the Scottish Highlands - from its squeaky floorboards, to its village pub filled with local worthies spilling beer and stories.

Just down the road is the Scottish Highland Creamery, which produces amazing ice-cream from traditional Italian recipes. The owner is, of course, a Scot. From Edinburgh.

There are hundreds of miles of coastline following ragged inlets in and out of bays and creeks. The roads are all inland, long driveways leading off into trees on either side towards hidden houses which face on to the water, each with its own private jetty, and a curious veil of anonymity. People who live here are, for the most part, either very rich, or very private.

As someone said in the bar last night, about forty percent of the population is probably on the witness protection scheme.

But it is also an artistic community, with writers, artists and poets settling in large numbers in search of inspiration and peace.

Among them is Kathy Harig, who recently moved her delightful mystery bookstore down here from Baltimore. Which was where, yesterday, I chatted with customers and signed books, on a damp, quiet Sunday.

Seven days ago we were in upstate New York, since when I have driven nearly 1200 miles, stopping in Connecticut, New York City, and Pittsburgh, PA. There, on Saturday morning, I gave a talk to a full-house at the Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont.

Owners, Mary-Alice and Richard, had laid on breakfast for their regular customers, who filled all the available table space, nibbling muffins and sipping coffee as I talked about my books. We had a lively and fun session, culminating in the signing of many books.

We left at midday, to pick up a take-away pizza, and get on the road for the six-hour drive south-east to Chesapeake.

I have to confess to a serious dose of fatigue. I feel (and probably look) as if I have aged ten years on this trip. Careful dieting and serious exercise will be necessary preparation in the weeks ahead of ever doing this again. But right now, for the purposes of recovery, all I want is to sleep - in my own bed!

But wait. Again. It’s not over. Today is a “day off”. A chance for some relaxing tourism, to take some fresh air and seafood. Then tomorrow it’s off to DC, an event at Borders at Bailey’s Crossroads, and an overnight at the home of our friend Barbara Busch. Before moving on to Richmond, Virginia, for a speaking engagement at the LaPrade library.

Then, and I hardly dare to believe it, we climb aboard an airplane at Dulles Airport and fly home to Paris.

But for now, that is a thought that I will push to the back of my mind. The game is not over till the fat lady sings.

Tonight, I will go to bed again, knowing that the President of the United States is slipping between the sheets less than an hour’s drive away. Tomorrow night I get a little nearer. For Barbara lives less than five miles from the White House. And that’s probably as close to the most powerful man in the world as I’m ever likely to get.

Connections in Connecticut

Dr. Richard Ward is one of the most pre-eminent experts on crime and international terrorism in the United States.

And it was thanks to Dick that I received my introduction to the Chinese police when I started writing my China Thrillers series in 1997, since when he has been a constant source of research and inspiration for all my books.

He has also become a great friend. And it is with Dick and his wife, Michelle, that we are staying these three days in Connecticut. It is my first trip to New England, towns and villages with quaint English names nestling amongst rolling countryside of spring green natural forest.

They live just outside of New Haven, the home of Yale University. Dick is Dean of the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, a part of the University of New Haven. He moved there two years ago from Sam Houston State University, where he was Dean of the College of Criminal Justice for ten years.

During that time he set up a terrorism monitoring organisation, where data gleaned from open sources is analysed by specially designed software to find hidden links between terrorists, terror groups, and organised crime. The data is collected and entered by criminal justice students, both domestic and foreign, at five different locations around the US.

The group is known as ISVG - the Institute for the Study of Violent Groups - and has its own website.

I took advantage of my time here to sit in on some of their briefings, and talk to the guys who are running the show. Fascinating stuff!

A local journalist thought so, too, and showed up for a briefing while we were there. On the table in the briefing room, was a CV of the Times Square bomber, which the guys at ISVG had put together for him. Not realising it was for him, he proceeded to spend the next fifteen minutes surreptitiously sliding the CV in amongst his own papers so that he could slip quietly away with it when he left.

Oh how we laughed when he was gone. He figured he had pulled off some kind of journalistic coup, when really he was just stealing from himself.

A further source of amusement came when he briefly left the room with his photographer to take pics of the kids entering up data at computers in the facility. We were all startled by the sudden ringing of a cellphone in the pocket of his jacket which was hanging over the back of a chair - the theme from Mission Impossible (a comment on his own self-image, perhaps?). We half expected the cellphone to self-destruct after five seconds.

Dick also does an hour-long weekly radio show which broadcasts to around 400,000 people, so we spent the next hour in the studio, where he recorded an interview with me for the show.

That was Tuesday, an unseasonally cold and wet day.

Wednesday we took the train to New York City to sign books at the Mysterious Bookshop at Tribeca in lower Manhattan. Afterwards, La Patronne and I met up with Susie for lunch. The weather was still cool, but improving.

Thursday was beautiful, with temperatures soaring to 28C, and Dick and Michelle drove us up the coast to the beautiful historical town of Mystic on the Mystic River, where majestic talls ships are berthed in a sheltered harbour overlooked by the original boatyards and chandlers, banks and immigration offices that lined the dock.

Tomorrow, it’s an early start and a long drive south and west to the city of Pittsburgh where I will give a breakfast talk on Saturday at the Mystery Lovers’ Bookshop, under the heading of “Coffee and Crime”.

At the same time, Dick will board an airplane and fly to Afghanistan.

I think I prefer my itinerary.

Dick and Michelle go overboard in Mystic

When Fates Conspire

Memories of nice people in Scottsdale - Susan and Jim, who took us to the hottest Mexican in town - literally.

Sometimes it seems (and I am not one of life’s conspiracy theorists) that fate simply conspires against you. And when life is stressful it does everything it can to make it more so.

So there we were. Three-thirty in the morning, standing outside the house in Scottsdale, Arizona, due to check-in for our flight at 4am. And the taxi we have ordered is late.

Not just any old taxi. It was a car from Arizona Executive transportation services, ordered and agreed during an exchange of several e-mails. Price nailed, time double-checked.

By ten to four, there was still no sign of it. Just the hot wind blowing off the desert in the dark. I searched through the yellow pages and called a Yellow Cab. The driver said he would be with us in twenty minutes - and the airport would be another twenty-minute drive away after that.

We waited and waited.

Until finally, the cab arrived, with still no sign of the car from Arizona Executive transportation. Of course, I had already phoned them... and got a recorded ad. for their “services”. No one at the other end of the phone.

As we slipped into the back seat of the cab, and hung on for dear life while the driver hurtled, bumped, and swerved his way along the freeway to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, I vowed that I would advise the world never to order a car from AE transport services - AE clearly being an acronym for Absolute Eejits.





So we arrive late for check-in, scramble through security, walk what seems like two miles to the gate, trailing computers and iPads, when I suddenly remember I have to upload my blog for Type M for Murder. I have two minutes to spare. But fortunately there is free wifi in the airport. Perched on the edge of a seat I log in and upload the blog, which I had written the night before, and make a dash for the plane.

Only to be stopped in my tracks by the announcement that carry-on bags are going to be arbitrarily checked into the hold. Strict limits are being applied. I am carrying two laptops, my iPad, all my electrical equipment, money, passport etc, in three bags. No way will it all be allowed on.

As if I wasn’t stressed enough. I was not going to let my computing power out of my hands. So I secreted one bag beneath my coat, and endeavoured to hide another on the farthest side from the check-in girl. Sweat and heart rate increase as I get closer.

She takes my ticket, looks suspiciously at the one immediately visible bag and... lets me through.

When I finally get into my seat, I should have been sighing with relief and relaxing for the rest of the flight. But no. I can’t get my feet under the seat in front. The guy sitting beside me is all elbows. I seem to be twisted in the seat and can’t get comfortable.

It was just going to be one of those days.

Three hours to Chicago, the clock going forward two. A two-and-a-half hour wait at O’Hare Airport, then another hour’s flight to Rochester, New York - and another hour moved forward.

There we meet up again with Susie and pick up a rental car. First of all the boot (trunk) is so small we can’t get all the bags in. Then the automatic gear gets stuck in low as we try to navigate out of the airport. I make two tours of the damned place before returning to the Hertz garage and demanding another car - which they provide, eventually, with a bad grace.

Finally we get to our hotel, only thirteen hours after dragging ourselves out of bed at 3am, and losing three hours on our day.

Of course, we were there for a family wedding - the marriage of La Patronne’s niece, Suzi, to Joel. So it was quick wash, then head off for the rehearsal dinner in a church hall somewhere. A loooong day.



This was not the limo that failed to take us to the airport - it was the bride and groom's ride to the wedding!

On Saturday I slipped into my pre-ordered kilt to discover that I must have lost weight. Only my belt (purchased for the purpose at the Grand Canyon) holds it up.

I won’t go into details of the wedding, suffice to say that all went well. Suzi and Joel finished the day husband and wife, and we all fell wearily into bed around midnight, only to be wakened three hours later by a fire alarm.



Susie and La Patronne do their imitation of Married to the Mob at the wedding.


The whole damned room reverberated to the sound of it, and a soporific female voice urging us to leave all behind and flee from the hotel by the nearest exit. Needless to say, I wasn’t going to be parted from my computers, even by fire. So, laden with bags, I toiled down four flights of stairs, half-dressed, to stumble out into the car park. There the entire population of the hotel shivered for the next forty minutes until the fire service determined that there was a “mechanical issue”, and that it had been a false alarm.

Having been wakened from a sound slumber, I found it impossible to get back to sleep, and the whole of Sunday was spent in a haze of fatigue - an early morning drive to take Susie to the airport, a wedding brunch at 10am, coffee by the canal at Fairport, sun streaming through the window to encourage increasingly heavy eyelids to close, and a late burger to settle a growling stomach.

Then up at 5, and on the road, south and east, through Massachusetts to Connecticut and the home of friends Dick and Michel Ward, where there is one day to draw breath before heading by train for New York City.

Tomorrow.

And tomorrow.

And tomorrow....