News from the North

1) The Night of Knives , my fourth novel - a.k.a. "the Africa book" - has been released into the paperback wilds of UK bookstoredom. The official blurb: Veronica Kelly came to Africa to start her life over. Still reeling from her divorce, she is grateful when a handsome stranger invites her to join a tour to visit gorillas in Uganda's wild Impenetrable Forest. A trip that goes desperately wrong when their group is captured by brutal gunmen. Then one tourist is executed. And then another. This is no random kidnapping: their abduction is only the first move in a deadly strategic game. A game in which Veronica's ex-husband is somehow involved. Now she must embark on a wild journey across Africa, to unveil a malignant conspiracy before it consumes entire nations - and thousands of lives... You can find it in fine bookstores across the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere, and also on Amazon.co.uk , or, eventually, Amazon.ca . Shop early, shop often! 2) Vertigo Comics...

Ten years ago exactly I spent six months in Africa. The first four were spent on a big yellow truck with twenty-three perfect strangers, overlanding from Morocco to Cameroon via the Sahara and the Gold Coast. Then I fled to Zimbabwe, hung out there for a month, and made my way to Cape Town via Botswana (very briefly) and Namibia. It was a pretty seminal journey; personally, on several levels, and it also led directly, as is obvious to those of you who have read it, to my first published novel, Dark Places . Today, going through some old CD-ROMs, I found that some years ago I transcribed the travel journal I kept. I just put its entries up on my blog, backdated. To be perfectly honest they aren't that exciting - mostly dry and factual. Also, I journalized less often as the trip grew more interesting. But who knows, some of you may find them somewhat readable, so I'll link to them all here, and then copy some good bits below. 23 Mar 1998: Camping de la Plage, Sale, Morocco 29 Mar...