Thanks to everyone who entered the competition to win a signed first edition trade paperback copy ofThe Killing Season by signing up to the Mason Cross Readers Club!
The competition is now closed and the randomly selected winner is David Barr! Congratulations, David, and thanks for signing up.
If you missed out on the competition, you can still sign up to the Readers Club using the handy form below. I'll only email you when there's something interesting to say (new book coming out, competition, possibly some exclusive content in the not-too-distant-future), and you can unsubscribe at any time with one click. Go on, you know you want to...
Want to win a signed first edition of the UK trade paperback version of The Killing Season?
It's the first novel in the Carter Blake series. Blake has to stop a lethal sniper rampaging across the Midwest. People who have said nice things about the book include Lee Child, Lisa Gardner and even one William Jefferson Clinton.
All you have to do to win a copy is sign up to my mailing list between today and midnight UK time (7pm EDT) on Sunday 28 August 2016.
It couldn't be easier - submit your name and email address below, then click on the confirmation email and you're on the list.
I only send an update when I have something interesting to report (like a new book coming out) so you don't have to worry about being bombarded with spam. That conjures up an interesting image, doesn't it?
The lucky winner will be selected at random and contacted by email to let them know they've won and to get a mailing address.
The competition is open to anyone, anywhere in the world.
I'll sign it (and personalise it if you want) and post it to you, wherever you may be.
And just while I have your attention, I'd like to draw your attention to some upcoming events:
11 August - Hillhouse Library, Hamilton
6:00pm | Hillhouse Road, Hamilton, ML3 9TX
Free event - contact the library on 01698 710400 for tickets.
16 August - The Ben Cleuch Centre, Tillicoultry
7:00pm | Park St, Tillicoultry, FK13 6AG
Contact Clackmannanshire Libraries on 01259 452262 for tickets.
11 September - Bloody Scotland, Stirling
1:30pm | The Golden Lion Hotel, 8-10 King Street, Stirling, FK8 1DQ
Tickets £7.50/£6.50, available from the festival website.
26 October - Encounters Festival, Coatbridge
7:00pm | Coatbridge Library, Buchanan Centre, 126 Main Street, Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, ML5 3BJ
Free event - visit the festival website for tickets.
There was a really fantastic response to the Goodreads giveaway of The Killing Season a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I'd try something different this time.
This time, you can win a signed, hardcover first American edition of The Samaritan. All you have to do is sign up to my mailing list between now and midnight GMT on Sunday 6 March 2016.
I promise not to spam you with daily ramblings - I only send an update when a new book is coming out or something actually interesting is happening.
I've updated the events page at the website with some new dates:
Blantyre Library - 15 February, 2:00pm
Waterstones Kirkcaldy - 26 February, 7:30pm
Aye Write festival - 12 March, 7:30pm
I'm really looking forward to all of these, especially Aye Write, where I'm on the bill with Mark Leggatt and Douglas Lindsay chatting about setting our thrillers internationally. Go here for more details on all of these - the Aye Write event is ticketed but the other two are completely free.
Elsewhere, Darren Brooks has posted a wide-ranging interview with me together with a really excellent, insightful dissection of the first two books over at his blog, titled 'A Ghost to Catch Ghosts'. I particularly enjoyed his likening of the series to anthology television shows - I hadn't really considered this, but it's a good point, and will hold true for Winterlong:
The anthology approach to the series works well, too. Like that practised by TV shows such as True Detective and Fargo – whose subsequent series tell new stories with new characters whilst retaining the parent title – it is an ideal device by which to gradually chip away at the hidden biography of Blake. Dropping the character into new cases with different investigatory teams is perfect for a man with secrets to maintain, in that he does not develop ongoing professional relationships and so avoids the familiarity common to conventional serial fiction, particularly the team ethic inherent to the police procedural. In adopting this anthologised style, it is ensured that Carter Blake – both the character and the history his chosen name is designed to disguise – lives on. For now.
I was really pleased to get a double-page spread in the Glasgow Evening Times about the Richard and Judy selection (apologies for my crappy camerawork - the full story is online here).
And hot on the heels of the US publication of The Samaritan, a great American notice from Raven's Reviews:
“Carter Blake” manages to remain mysterious. Precious and few are the clues that Blake drops, and little is told about the man at all. This doesn’t stop him from being a combination of James Bond and Jason Bourne, with maybe a pinch of the Punisher thrown in for seasoning.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I love all of those characters, but it's the first time the Punisher has been mentioned. Makes sense, as I was reading Garth Ennis's superlative Punisher MAX around the time I was writing Killing Season. Funnily enough, that was basically a crime anthology series that revolved around one character.
Finally, I've just sent out my first update to the mailing list to mark the UK paperback and US hardcover publication of The Samaritan. If you want to be kept in the loop with occasional updates on when each new book is coming out, all you have to do is sign up right here - I promise not to spam you:
That's it for now - I'll be posting about a new Goodreads giveaway next week, so watch this space!
