I cannot believe it is July already! I have been so busy that time has simply sped by and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. I’m doing my best not to be tempted into adding to my already too long to-do list, but there are always opportunities too good to miss (like writing about medieval women for girls at the fabulous Dundee-based Jump Magazine).

But I want to introduce you to Graham Wynd — who is me, of course. I’ve decided I needed to create another pseudonym to identify my crime writing. Perhaps ‘need’ is a bit strong: I found it advisable to try to distinguish the rambling incoherencies delightful flights of imagination that get published under my own name from the fairly straightforward crime writing.

The biggest problem I have faced as far as gaining a readership (I have been told repeatedly) is that each new book I do is nothing like the previous books that I have written. I can understand this (just as I am also seemingly incapable of not writing new and bizarre things) and while I have tried to stick to a series with the Chastity Flame books, I am also trying to build up a set of mimetic crime stories as ‘Graham’ too.

First up will be a couple of tales with Fox Spirit:

Extricate is a noir novella set a few decades in the past, a grim tale of betrayal and sexual obsession. Think Jim Thompson and James M. Cain territory (okay and a few Peter Cook references for no reason at all).

‘Headless in Bury’ is a flash story in the Missing Monarchs Fox Pocket anthology coming soon. It’s based on the murder and miracle of King Edmund the Martyr, who was killed by Vikings, but modernised and noired up a bit.

Drop by Graham Wynd’s home on Facebook and give him a ‘like’! Where did the name come from? Hmmm…