From 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…
Today’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”…
Today’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.…
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…
This 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…
“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…
19 January 1915 My aunt is a perfect virtuoso of the arts of delay. Under our roof the immoveable object has spent the last week meeting the irresistible object…and it has moved. The delays of bank signatures and explanations, and the troubles of wartime shortages, and the foul weather, and the increased risk of German invasion…