Field Notes

Imagination is the bedrock of great writers – for others, the life led fills the page and colours all the words with meaning and substance.

In the wake of a catastrophic explosion at Adolfo Guzman’s arms warehouse and the loss of ten million pounds from Otterburn Fuller Bank, the president of the bank, Lord Longwitton, publicly blames his son Charles Mayer for the bank’s financial debacle. Mayer, however, points the blame toward Dan Cooper, who he claims orchestrated the bombing…

Say it quickly, and it almost sounds sane. Slowly, and you’re swimming in a swamp of lunacy.

A regular newsletter is a relatively new phenomenon – brought about because authors can now connect directly with their readers. In the past, a writer would toil away and then hand a manuscript to a publisher who, if it were accepted, would edit, polish and draw up marketing plans for a couple of years – and send out their sales force to bookshops with the list of books that were to be published in a few months.

Star TV was launched in Hong Kong on 29 September 1990, bringing Hollywood English-language entertainment channels to Asian audiences.

The premier was furious when the Sunday Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch, published an allegation in February 1994 under the headline “Wimpey offered bribes to Malaysian Prime Minister” that Malaysia Government officials, including Mahathir, had been offered a US $50,000 bribe by a British company, Wimpey, to assist them in winning a government contract.

Marked by the ravages of war, Tony, a former soldier, and Maria, a nurse, turn to the tranquil paradise of Langkawi for solace. However, their plans are disrupted as fate entangles them in fresh conflicts—Tony aiding a troubled comrade and Maria returning to her war-torn homeland. United by the spectre of oppression and ancient perils, they unravel a chilling truth. In the heart of this darkness, survival necessitates more than just courage; it demands a confrontation with the very essence of their humanity.

Fort Gulick was a former United States Army base located in the Republic of Panama. It was named after Brigadier General Lawrence L. Gulick, who served in the U.S. Army during World War I and World War II. The base was operational from 1943 until it was closed in 1999 following the transfer of the Panama Canal Zone to Panamanian control.

Bosham in Chichester Harbour is a village whose narrative stems from Roman origins and weaves a tapestry of English history.

“Henry Kissinger was a colossus who bestrode a century: He shaped politics like no other statesman, and the world wouldn’t be in such a perilous state if more followed his wise and ruthlessly pragmatic approach”, claims one of his many biographers.

When I met Sir Ian McKellen a few weeks ago, I gifted him a first edition copy of A Flyblown Solution, complete with the original yellow and black screen-print cover by the talented Mark Dodson. If you buy the book today, you’ll be one of first to own a copy featuring a brand new cover! I’m pleased to announce that The Omega Files Quartet has now finished a series-wide rebrand and, along with the website and my newsletter (subscribe here), is a bold step in an exciting direction for the series. You can see fabulous new cover art below:

A court in El Salvador on 11 March 2022 ordered the arrest of former president Alfredo Cristiani concerning the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests witnessed by Consuela in A Candle for Consuela.

A key figure in the life of Consuela Flores in A Candle for Consuela, Father Rutilio Grande was a Jesuit priest in El Salvador dedicated to social justice and the rights of the poor. He was assassinated, aged 48. by a death squad on March 12, 1977.

I have been asked why I write. That is a question I’ve asked myself a number of times. The answer, I guess, is that I’m not sure how not to write. I’ve amassed files of “stuff” – notebooks,  stories, poetry, scraps of papers with overheard conversations – they don’t have any distinction or literary merit. They go back many years and are no more than the bits and pieces that record the life that I was leading at any one time.

COP26 refers to the 26th annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Self-driving buses will drive alongside other traffic for the first time in the UK as part of a trial in Cambridge. The three-wheel ‘autonomous passenger shuttles’ or ‘Auto-Shuttles’ were launched in May (2021) Thursday at the University of Cambridge.

Line of Duty’s sixth series was just as taut and thorny as ever. It eclipsed everything else on television, with sixteen million people watching its final episode in May.