Holiday themes - US-style, so likes of Easter and Solstices. I'm a big fan of them as a jumping off point.

I'm giving the keynote (after lunch, soothing, soundtrack to a wee siesta) at the otherwise dynamic and sparkling @capitolcrimes.bsky.social con this year. If you're registered, waddaya wanna hear? I've got such a generic title I can talk about anything. Maybe not recipes- Wait! They'd work too.

Rachel has her own clean, comfortable bed and is also allowed to sleep (like how would we stop her) on her pick of five couches and five armchairs in this house, but she prefers to curl up with Correspondence Anaylsis in Practice and The Study of Plant Disease Epidemics. #Caturday

Not every day you wake up to discover that your beloved grandfather, who survived six years of Stalag 383 on non-compliance rations, because he refused to work for the Nazi war machine, was part of a major terrorist organisation. #ANTIFA

"A loopy, lovable Northern California crew stops arguing among themselves just long enough to solve a baffling double murder." Kirkus called me "brisk, quirky, comic, tangled, clever, tart". Not "a tart" just "tart". Still something to aim for next time. www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...

Physiotherapy on #Caturday. Knee on cushions, ice on injury, cat on chest.

Faith in humanity taken a bit of a beating? I prescribe @louberney.bsky.social's DARK RIDE, three times a day with food. #FridayReads. (My agent was on the judging panel for the Steel Dagger and sent the winner to me - thank you, @literarylisa.bsky.social!

Catriona McPherson is the award-winning author of several mystery series as well as many standalone crime novels. She'll share her secrets about keeping things fresh & exciting! Register for the WriteNOW! Conference at DesertSleuths.com #DSWN25 #AmWriting #MysteryWriters @catrionamcp.bsky.social

#Thursday w @jameswziskin.bsky.social >> 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/09/reme... |@sincnational.bsky.social @catrionamcp.bsky.social @terryshames.bsky.social @arttaylorwriter.bsky.social @cathyace.bsky.social @loriraderday.bsky.social @kellyekell.bsky.social @alisongaylin.bsky.social

#Wednesday with Dietrich Kalteis >> 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/09/hell... @sinc-cw.bsky.social @sinc-cw.bsky.social @canadahardcover.bsky.social #shoutout @catrionamcp.bsky.social @ericbeetner.bsky.social @thecwa.bsky.social

#ICYMI Poppy Gee @catrionamcp.bsky.social @gvaljan.bsky.social @sincnational.bsky.social >> 7criminalminds.blogspot.com

This anthology by LGBTQ+ crimewriters, inspired by queer icons, is my delicious treat of a #FridayReads. Bravo!

How do we keep going in the between times? Some of us ADORE the between times. Living quietly, over at Criminal Minds today. Plus event links, @desertsleuths.bsky.social and @capitolcrimes.bsky.social, and @netgalley.bsky.social news too. 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/08/here...

Award-winning author Catriona McPherson will be leading a wonderful workshop on clues, red herrings, & fair-play in mysteries. Learn to craft stronger, more satisfying stories! Register for the WriteNOW! Conference at DesertSleuths.com #DSWN25 #AmWriting #WritingCommunity @catrionamcp.bsky.social

#Thursday w @catrionamcp.bsky.social > 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/08/here... | @bloodyscotland.bsky.social #Bouchercon @literarylisa.bsky.social @desertsleuths.bsky.social #WriteNow2025 @capitolcrimes.bsky.social

Reality is utter shite & we need to work harder than ever. But, for respite, I made a fictional world where a ragtag band of misfits love each other & never stop the snark. SCOT'S EGGS, book seven of the Last Ditch trilogy, is up on NetGalley for early review. www.netgalley.com/catalog/publ...

See this is why I can't answer the question "What sort of thing do you read?". Either @writelarrywrite.lawrenceallanwrites.com 's third Jimmy Cooper or Rabih Alamaddine's . . . less easy to pin down than a cozy noir, actually. Also, both these guys are nailing the headshot. #FridayReads

I haven't got a pic of the book I'm reading, and it's hardly hot news that it's Linda Castillo again anyway, so how about this for #FridayReads?

There's been a range of views this week on when titles, how titles, and whether titles (are "writing"), over at Criminal Minds. I'm up today with some of my stinkers. 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-...

#Thursday w @catrionamcp.bsky.social >> 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-... | @sincnational.bsky.social @literarylisa.bsky.social @sistersincrimela.bsky.social #shoutout @jspencerfleming.bsky.social @janeygodley.bsky.social Terri Bischoff #titles

STILL SEE YOU EVERYWHERE by Lisa Gardner, for #FridayReads. Might not have devoured it quite so greedily if I'd known the fourth one in the series isn't out till later this month.

The tl;dr of this is "Don't be a dick". The expanded version includes "Be Charlaine Harris" The whole post is going to have you wondering who else I'm talking about. Appropriately enough he shall rename nameless. 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/07/yes-...

#Thursday w @catrionamcp.bsky.social >> 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/07/yes-... | @sincnational.bsky.social @literarylisa.bsky.social @histnovsoc.bsky.social @realcharlaine.bsky.social @damedenisemina.bsky.social @valmcdermid.bsky.social @harrogatefestivals.bsky.social

And now tomorrow is today!

Coming out in the US tomorrow - THE EDINBURGH MURDERS - 1948, grimy tenements, grimier society, grimiest deeds, but! Helen Crowther. #NewBook #NewCrimeFiction #NewMystery #Edinburgh #NHS catrionamcpherson.com/helen-crowth...

Janey's not here to welcome Trump to Scotland this time, but

I got through a rough patch last year on @jennycolgan.bsky.social's boarding school stories for grown ups. Lisa Gardner's Searcher series is getting me through a much less bleak but still far from ideal time now. #FridayReads

Ever think 1948 - Edinburgh hauling herself out of WWII, still on rationing & hobbled by a rigid class system, would look like the salad days? Here we are. At Dru's Book Musing today with a DitL of a tenement doctor. #Giveaway of both books in my baby series. drusbookmusing.com/sarah-strass...

Ever think 1948 - Edinburgh hauling herself out of WWII, still on rationing & hobbled by a rigid class system, would look like the salad days? Here we are. At Dru's Book Musing today with a DitL of a tenement doctor. #Giveaway of both books in my baby series. drusbookmusing.com/sarah-strass...

A big beautiful (OMG - we're never going to be able to say that again, are we?). Okay a substantial, gorgeous honest-to-God thriller from a master of the game for #FridayReads. Just what the doctor ordered. (Next step after prescribing gardening and country walks, I reckon.)

It's not Celtic Vibe for long. It degenerates into an intemperate whine about not living in NHS-land when I've just broken my kneecap.

This sucks a wee bit. I've got health insurance, a caring spouse who can cook, a mostly one-level house, and a job that's mostly typing. But it still sucks a wee tiny bit.

Tana French's THE SEARCHER for #FridayReads. It's a slow-burn, but a page turner with it, absolutely irresistible characters. Also, I want to move to Ireland.

Should have written that dress into your contract, Amanda!

Happy 77th Birthday to our beloved #NHS & happy random post-publication day to my crime novel set at its birth. "No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of a lack of funds." Aneurin Bevan, 1948. "Edinburgh keeps her secrets" Me, 2022

#ICYMI Poppy Gee @catrionamcp.bsky.social @navah74.bsky.social @gvaljan.bsky.social >> 7criminalminds.blogspot.com | #writingprompts #craft

#Thursday w @catrionamcp.bsky.social >> 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/06/sole... | @sincnational.bsky.social @literarylisa.bsky.social @sistersincrimela.bsky.social #poetry @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social #writingprompts

It's writing prompts this week at Criminal Minds. Me? Nothing very useful but plenty other stuff, again. Might be news to US readers. Egg-sucking lessons for the Brits, Granny. 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/06/sole...

Listening to the sombre tones of the BBC talking about the "incident" at Glasto, I was thinking . . . bomb, shooting, stabbing. Kept listening. Ah hurty words. Kept listening. Couldn't tell, but guessed someone failed to hate Palestinians being alive enough.

Absolutely delicious rom-com set in a Seattle bookshop. Moira Macdonald's STORYBOOK ENDING for #FridayReads

Blimey, this is good. Effortlessly, smoothly, irresistibly readably good. Percival Everett's THE TREES for #FridayReads

I'm excited to partner with my amazing local indie, @kewandwillow.bsky.social, to launch my very own little webstore - you can buy pretty much any of my books directly from K&W, and I'll happily sign them! Just note at checkout you'd like it signed. kewandwillow.com/list/alex-se...

So I was taking a pic to put on the "What I'm Reading" bit of my website and looked a bit closer at the "stripes". They're names.

"Advice for new authors about audio format, film rights, foreign translations..."? Not so much - my early books were carved on stone tablets - but come and see the worst book jacket ever, folks. It's on the Turkish translation of THE CHILD GARDEN. 7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2025/06/noth...

And this probably isn't even rock bottom yet. This sneering, drawling, smug, unconscionable display of emptiness isn't even as low as he'll go.

Can't resist revisiting the time my husband sat next to Ted Cruz on a plane and pretended he didn't know who he was. TC mightily displeased apparently.

Need an escape into comfort and optimism this weekend? Yeah, well Ramona Emerson's @reelindian.bsky.social EXPOSURE will give you a bone-hard account of the lives of Navajo people in today's Albuquerque instead. But it's absolutely brilliant too. #FridayReads

Ey-up. I'm on Netflix, Prime and Britbox surveillance-setting now, since a UK pal told me about the 3-hour documentary "Jane Austen: rise of a genius". If all else fails, I'll catch on iPlayer when I get to Scotland in August www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Creating chaos, then pressing a hand to the heart and saying "Oh dearie me. Not chaos!" and doing what you wanted to do anyway? That shit's been busted since it was Victorian husbands driving their wives insane then locking them up in insane asylums. I ❤️CALIFORNIA

It's Ramona Emerson's (@reelindian.bsky.social) SHUTTER for #FridayReads. It's an #ownvoices belter about a Native Amercian crime scene photographer in Albuquerque. How does someone write a debut like this??? When I sign *my* debut, I write "read gently; I was still learning".