Mark Timlin

I once said to my nearest and dearest, if I ever decide to write a Blog – shoot me.

Luckily there’s no gun available, so here I am.

The reason I’m doing it is simple. Last year I fell foul of reader’s block, and took a long holiday from my regular(ish) column in The Independent On Sunday. I’d been reviewing crime for fifteen years, and I was bored stiff. But around last Christmas I started reading crime novels again, and I went to Katy Guest at the IOS and she asked me to submit some reviews, which I did, and had my first one published a couple of weeks ago, and maybe I’ll get a column again. Who knows?

So, as I’m reading and reviewing once more, and can only get into print occasionally, my friend and one of my publishers, Ion Mills at No Exit Press suggested I put what is not going to go into the paper on to the internet.

And here it is.

But best of all, I don’t just need to review novels. Not that I’m going to tell you what I had for breakfast (two cups of tea and a bottle of orange juice) or what the cat did (died).

Books, music, TV, DVD’s. That’ll be about it.

So before I write anything else, here’s what I’m reading now: Two new novels from Peter James: Dead Like You and The Perfect Murder, from Pan Macmillan, both looking good. Plus 10 Rules Of Writing by Elmore Leonard published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Blimey, I reckon I could use them. Listening to two 10 inch Tommy Steele LP’s on Decca Records(I collect old vinyl) The soundtrack from The Duke Wore Jeans featuring June Laverick, who was the subject of many a young boy’s desires in the nineteen-fifties, including mine. An Eric Delaney 10 inch LP Hi-Fi Delaney on Pye Nixa. Watching ER series 14 on DVD and the CSI trilogy on the box. Now I’m going to round up the books I’ve reviewed over the last few weeks which aren’t going into the paper andI’ll do my first Blog proper.

By the way, before I forget, it’s congratulations to my web wizard, Nick David who organised this thing for me, and his lovely wife Gemma who are expecting their first baby in October. We had a great Japanese lunch at Roka on Canary Wharf last weekend. I stuffed my face with ribs, chicken on skewers, pork dumplings and soft shell crabs. Sorry, I said nothing about food didn’t I. Still it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.

Later.

One more thing before I go. Any spelling mistakes or any other literals are all mine.