Zoot Alors!

If you happen to be passin' thru Paris this week, then do call and say hello. Yours truly will be performing - and I mean performing, I juggle now as well as read - at the Irish Cultural Centre this Thursday evening at 7.30 pm. It's at rue des Irelandais, naturally enough. Then on Saturday night I'll be taking part in a panel discussion at Bilipo: 48-50, rue du Cardinal Lemoine. This is a library actually devoted to crime fiction, and I'll be on stage together with two other authors who like to have a laugh as well, the Frenchman Colin Thibert and the Englishman Charlie Williams, whose works, like mine, have been published in French by Série Noire. The moderator for the evening is Nathalie Beunat. So if you get the chance, come along and say 'ello, 'ello.

Download!

Strewth, whatever will they come up with next?! You can now download the first chapter of Mystery Man onto your mobile phone simply by texting MYSTERY to 64888! I have no idea how this works outside of the UK, but why not give it a try? If it doesn't work you could try txting me directly and I'll call you back and READ you the first chapter. Just key in CATCHYOURSELF ON. Meanwhile I fully expect The Observer to carry a piece on Mystery Man and the publicity whirlwind surrounding No Alibis this weekend, and also The Sunday Times has been looking for a photo of me, so this probably means they're doing something as well, unless of course they've discovered that I've secretly been trafficking gerbils to Azkaban in which case I'm saying NOTHING. These may only appear in the Irish editions of these papers, which is a crying shame.....

It's no longer a Mystery, it's a little piece of History

Hopefully very exciting times ahead folks, with the news that Mystery Man has been seized by the Richard and Judy show for their Summer Read promotion, news which was released by huge coincidence on the very day the book was published. I'm in with seven other books, which I'm sure are all fine and wonderful, but really I'd much prefer you buy mine! What it does mean is that the hardback/trade paperback will be joined very suddenly next weekend by the mass market paperback as well. Frankly, I think you should buy them all. It's also a little ironic that a book which in its own mad way celebrates the wonder of independent book stores, suddenly becomes available through Tescos and Asda and other major chains where previously I couldn't get arrested. Seriously, it's a huge bonus. Depending on where you live of course, and when you read this, I hope some of you can come along to what will be a rather surreal experience tonight, the launch of Mystery Man in No Alibis in Botanic Avenue in Belfast, that's 7 pm on May 1st.
This extra promotion for the book has also led my publishers at Headline Review to bring forward the publication of the sequel, The Day of the Jack Russell, which instead of May next year, is now to be published this coming November. Around about that time I should also be starting in on the third in the series, which at the moment I'm calling Dr. Chicago. All I need now is a plot.

Meanwhile, entirely independent of the above promotion, I'm at a fairly advanced state of negotiations with the BBC over a television version of Mystery Man, and if all goes according to plan I'll start writing the script in about a month's time.