NEWS
Dark Water published 5th August 2010



EVENTS
20-23 May 2010 - Bristol Crimefest
3 June 2010 - Millport Library
22-25 July 2010 - Harrogate Crimefest

You can now get in touch with me on Facebook, or on email at caro.ramsay@ntlworld.com should you want to book me for any events etc.

And a special hello to Melanie - nice to get your letter and I hope your own writing is going well.

As you can see above I am now on Facebook and I am amazed I have so many friends!! I suppose that's the great thing about Facebook, people can be your friends and you don't actually have to know them... which can be helpful!

Seriously though it is nice to hear from people who talk to me at events and maybe ask my advice on something (misguided but complimentary!). People at events are always genuine, very nice and chatty and sometimes ages afterwards I think... I wonder how they ever got on with that... then they bounce up on Facebook and say... oh hello, remember me I was the one with the poodle at... (Yes I am one of those people that remember the dog rather than the person) and it's great when they take the time to get back in touch and let me know how it went.

Unfortunately the world of publishing is on its knees at the moment and I don't think anybody is buying anything which is a shame as so many people put in such a big effort to make it all work. However, I hope we have weathered the economical storm and that over the next two years it will all pick up again. Just need to tighten the hatches and work a bit harder!

Oh and there has been great initial feedback about Dark Water from people who do have to say they like it! Comments include 'scary', 'very scary', 'your best yet' and the usual comments from my friend in the tourist board requesting a book that has good weather in Glasgow (what fiction). Book four is set during a heat wave, I promise.

Meanwhile, the house dog, a rescue mutt called Emily (a specific breed of dog in this part of the world known to Billy Connolly as a 'BGD', Big Glasgae Dug... they are are kind of brown, ugly and normally found upending a wheelie bin in search of food) has become the enforcer of the street. A rather large and handsome Weimaraner decided to try and chat her up, he was not on a lead and was trying to be rather amorous in his attentions. He was very handsome but I can only compare it to James Bond trying to chat up Miss Marple and getting a very severe slap in the process. Mr Weimaraner has since been more careful in his approaches to lady dogs since Emily had a go! All dog owners in the street think this is good news as he is a bit of a lad with the lady dogs and the street has a few unexplained cross Weimaraner puppies and a few very cross owners.

Meanwhile, for recreation I've been reading the diaries of Gyles Brandreth... an amazing peep into the life of a type of person whose path I would never cross although as I type that I realise I have met him twice and am about to see him again at Bristol. He is totally bonkers in the nice eccentric way he comes across on tv. But his diaries are amazing... boarding school and travelling across Europe on his own at seven years of age! At seven I doubt I could find my way to the bike sheds. His historical stand on prisoners rights and human rights makes amazing reading for those of us who only really know him for wearing funny jumpers on TVAM.

And class has been very interesting. There was a strange topic of conversation at writers' group - foxes are getting very tame:

ME - Yes, they are urban now and live on a diet of chicken tikka masala.

JC - It's only a matter of time before they take a baby.

CR - No, I think that was a dingo and I'm sure the dingo was innocent in the end.

That provoked a discussion that proves it's a common held belief in some parts of the west coast that foxes do kill and eat children!! So of course, I go to class and the lecture is about bodies left outside and who gets there first in a decomposition sense. And then the lecturer said it, 'foxes do not like the taste of human flesh... they do like the bone marrow but not the flesh... and rodents will gnaw away at the long bones of your hands and feet to sharpen their teeth.' Which means of course that you are, in reality, more likely to be eaten by the faithful hound that falls asleep in front of your fire every night than any creature of the forest. I think that was a line in Bridget Jones... something about 'I shall die in my flat alone and be eaten by my Alsation!'

More soon.

Caro