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I enjoy reading detective fiction. Holding a forensic science degree means that I like to see proper evidence to help the detective reach their conclusion. Magical or Scientific evidence, it doesn’t even matter to me if the author makes it up as they go along, just give me evidence to prove your case and solve your crime. Fan Art of a ginger cat carrying a glove (drawn by me) with a border of fish skeletons (public domain, Wikicommons) Every Contact Tells a Tail (No Spoiler)

Researching My Stories Why research? Research is a vital part of story-telling. Even if you are setting your book today, you’ll need to show your readers that it is today. So, you’ll look up something significant that happens today, and include it in your story. Or the opposite: you’re trying to make your tale timeless and have your character eat some toffos. You just dumped your story into the 1990s, but you wouldn’t know that if you hadn’t researched. Do we really need all

The Tapestry of Caroline's Wish, another of my character drawings. A little Back Story Recently you might have seen me having a moan on social media. Why, oh why, I said, Did I come up with this ridiculous idea? More importantly, why am I still going ahead with it, despite all the work? Well, it all goes back to this time last year. I was reading through my novel yet again, after the seventh rejection, trying to work out what was wrong or missing. The last publishing house di

Often, to get an idea of a character in a book I'm writing, I will write short stories to find out their personality. This story is formatted in a similar manner to the chapters in Her Borrowed Grave. More about Her Borrowed Grave Image: Herrad of Landsberg, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain. Forensic Science Laboratory Laboratory Notes Item Number: Case number: Description of Article: plaster cast of footwear mark Where found: park gates Packaging of item: Tamperp

You’ll have to be as old as me to remember that song, but on with the review. This month I’m talking about Ben Aaronovitch’s Winter’s...

Back in the 1980s, my family moved to the US from the UK. When I entered a US bookstore, it was like a dream come true. So many Science...

(contains spoilers) The movie Babylon, reminded me to talk about Barbara Hambly’s book Scandal in Babylon which covers the same era. I...