Andrew Taylor Author

At last the Beast has left home. The Beast is the sixth novel in the Marwood and Lovett Restoration series. The typescript has slunk into the undergrowth, on its way to both my editor and my agent. Why the Beast? Well, this book has been a Beast to write. Of course all books are beast to write, but for some reason this one has been a bigger beast than usual. It deserves its capital letter. They say hard writing makes easy reading… 

The previous working title was The Dark Queen, but it’s now called THE SHADOWS OF LONDON, which I hope you’ll all agree is a much better title. UK publication is currently scheduled for 2 March 2023. 

In July I was at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was my first major live festival since Covid struck, which made it special. That and the people, of course. You can see some of the riff-raff I had to consort with here: 

In other news, I review occasionally, mainly in The Times, the Spectator and the Guardian. Here are links to my most recent – the Spectator review of Martin Edwards’ Life of Crime, his witty and authoritative history of the genre, and the Observer review of Robert Harris’s Act of Oblivion.March 2022

The Royal Secret, the fifth and latest in the Marwood and Lovett Restoration series, has just been published in paperback. It’s available from all good booksellers, among them Waterstones (whose edition includes bonus material) and of course Amazon. In hardback it was a Sunday Times Top Twenty bestseller. 

It’s also available as an ebook and audiobook, of course. For this month only, the Kindle ebook edition in on sale for .99p. 

At present I’m writing the sixth Marwood and Lovett novel. I won’t say the end is in sight, but I’m pretty sure that I can see something shimmering on the horizon. The provisional title is The Dark Queen, but of course that’s subject to change. UK publication will probably be in Spring 2023.

Several of my other novels are currently available as Kindle deals. At .99p I couldn’t resist stocking up on these three novels from my Lydmouth Series set in the 1950s: An Air That Kills, Death’s Own Door and Naked To The Hangman. Finally, my very first novel, Caroline Minuscule, published 40 years ago, is also available for .99p, when both its author and the world as a whole were very different from now. But don’t delay – these offers are time-limited too. 

Talking of Lydmouth, I’ve contributed a new Lydmouth short story, called ‘Wrong Notes’ to Music of the Night, the latest anthology from the Crime Writers’ Association, edited by Martin Edwards and published by Flame Tree Press. 

In other news, I review occasionally in The Times and the Spectator. I’ll be teaching an Arvon fiction course at The Hurst in May, and a morning workshop about plot and narrative for the John Moore Museum at Tewkesbury in July. I’ll also be appearing at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Fiction Festival in Harrogate, also in July, See Events for full details.