Today Random House have completed their map jigsaw-puzzle (over here) so I told the ladies there that I would post a blog about it. And who better to talk about the process of building a map than the main artist, Jean Lukens? Here she is: The process begins when I find mail in my inbox…
Read MoreFrom Dreaming Spies: I stretched out on my deck-chair and watched the landscape roll past, studying the scores of small islands and myriad of foreign coastal craft—junks and sampans and barges, fishing boats with high prow and stern, their sails like Hokusai prints. Japan’s inland sea is spectacular, despite being one of the busiest piece…
Read MoreFrom Dreaming Spies: A quick survey of the Thomas Carlyle gave me its layout: main deck below, promenade deck with our staterooms and First-Class dining, boat deck above us with saloon bar, smoking room, and a few more elaborate staterooms. Above that was the sun deck, from which rose the ship’s bridge, wireless rooms, and…
Read MoreToday’s Dreaming Spies post has migrated over to the blog of some friends. Murder is Everywhere is a blog where great crime writers talk about their view of the wide world. They’re hosting me today, as I talk about how unexpected discoveries on the road lead to unexpected directions for the story. “The Accidental Traveler”…
Read MoreToday’s Dreaming Spies Countdown post is another bunch of pictures over on the Pinterest page: peruse the sailing life of Russell & Holmes, over here. * * 26 January 1915 It is difficult not to believe that the current state of the world was designed specifically to thwart the intentions of one Mary J. Russell.…
Read MoreFrom Dreaming Spies: While the Colombo-bound passengers and day-trippers jostled noisily down one set of gangways and the coal and coconuts streamed up another, I retired to a deck-chair with my book. Holmes glowered down at the teeming dockside below. I pointedly kept my eyes on the pages. Steamers were filthy, no way around it.…
Read MoreFor twenty-four days, my world had been 582 feet long and had a population of little more than a thousand souls. My rare ventures onto terra firma threatening more disorientation than relief, Kobe was the first time I had allowed myself to become conscious of a two-tiered horizon: one that vanished into the haze, the…
Read MoreThis post isn’t strictly about writing Dreaming Spies, but is one of the things that happened afterward…. * * Some years ago, I got a gorgeous, and literal, fan-letter from a woman who liked my books. I always like letters from readers, and I always answer them—but this woman had a degree in Japanese history…
Read More“The haiku captures a fleeting moment. Of great beauty, or heartbreak. A moment that, hmm,… encapsulates the essence of a season. Such as the fragrance of blossoming cherries, or the sound of snow, or the feel of hot summer wind blowing the bamboo.” Furuike ya Kawazu tobikomu Mizu no…
Read MoreHalf the population of the Thomas Carlyle was leaning on the rails, sweating into their flimsiest garments and glaring down at terra firma, while the great engines throbbed and the sun bellowed its way up the eastern sky. “There.” Holmes nodded up the docks, past the nearly-completed Gateway, physical assertion of the British Empire’s claim…
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