From 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.…

For 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…

“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…

Half 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…

On Feb 17, Dreaming Spies hits the shelves. As with the last few books, I’ll do daily blog posts from now until pub day, talking about various aspects of the book. There will be NO SPOILERS, I promise, other than telling you that the book takes place partly in Japan and partly in England. None of…

So many lovely images, when it comes to a book about Japan in the Twenties. Random House are having fun with it, designing cards for us to send to all our friends– –and today I opened a Pinterest page to go with the excerpts you’ve been reading. Today’s images are at the book’s beginnings, and…