So today I read some really good stories by an author called Calwell. They have given me thoughts for maybe to start to write again. Not sure when or how to start but maybe this can be the start. I miss writing. It used to calm me as a teenager and a young adult. Maybe it can help me make up some more stories for my son who is 8 years old. I am trying to go back to my happier days before I had depression and stress.

Bloody Scotland, 14 th September 2024 I don’t go out much. When I usually do it involves watching Celtic and getting drunk. That’s Bloody Scotland for you. But this was a different kind of outing. Bloody Scotland inspired by William McIlvanney’s Laidlaw . Labelled the Godfather of Tartan Noir, the Glaswegian detective didn’t as much solve a crime as solve the world with his philosophical musings. Over the weekend of Friday, Saturday and Sunday,...

Fern Brady is a well-known comedian. I didn’t know that before I read her autobiography, Strong Female Character . She comes from Bathgate and planned to kill herself before she left school if she didn’t get the grades she needed to go to university. Call that overkill. That’s normal for her in a world of hypervigilance in which there’s no such thing as normal. For convenience all the information the reader needs is on the cover. ‘Fern Brady is...

I had the great pleasure of talking to Edith Zeitlberger of EZ Fiction about MALIGN INTENT and the background to the creation of Crowe. She is extremly warm and engaging and her podcasts have a very easy going vibe. It was an absolute pleasure to chat to her. Links below - MURDER IN IRELAND. YouTube Spotify https://www.robert-cravenauthor.ie Check them out!

It’s mandatory to namecheck Louise Welsh’s debut novel, The Cutting Room , which won just about everything. This is her tenth novel. It’s set in much the same place as her first. In and around Downhill, Partick and the West End of Glasgow. The protagonist is Jim Brennan. He’s a Professor at Glasgow University, his speciality is criminology. Louise Welsh is a Professor at Glasgow Uni too. Her speciality is Creative Writing. I take it she’s not...

Some of you may remember this story being serialised on ABCTales during the dark days of the pandemic? Sometimes, I thought it was the only thing keeping me sane! Well, for one day only (Sunday, 8th September), this rather overlooked little book is absolutely FREE as a Kindle version. What people have kindly said aboout it: " Really enjoyed this right riotous rollicking story, Ethel, a young lady of good family has somehow found herself homeless...

Save the date Location - The Academy Plaza Hotel, Findlater Place, Dublin 1 I will be speaking at The International Dublin Writer's Festival on Saturday 21st, The theme of my talk is my personal writing journey over 10 books, and remaining resitlient and positive offering insights and suggesteions in this rapidly shifting environment of indie publishing. My latest Malign Intent will be available at the venue and I will be happy to chat...

In My Own Words, Billy Connolly, BBC 1, BBC Scotland, BBC iPlayer, https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0022mr1/in-my-own-words-series-1-billy-connolly Billy Connolly seems to have been about forever. He’s the face and voice of Scotland. The face of Glasgow where he grew up and worked on the Clyde as a welder. That working-class grounding, he claimed, made him the man he was. He’s Parkinson disease (the bastard should have kept it to himself)...

...why the next episode in the 'Dead Reckoning' series hasn't appeared in the normal manner, I'm afraid it's because I've been busy being 70 (I know, I know, where does the time go to?!) Normal service (for a septuagenarian anyway) will be resumed as soon as possible I've also got an additional one-off silly story to post, coming soon (hopefully).

Malign Intent is the sequel to and the second in a planned series featuring the protagonist Garda Inspector P.J. Crowe. It’s my second contemporary crime thriller. Like its predecessor A KIND OF DROWNING, it was inspired by the rugged coastline of Ireland’s East Coast. A coastline with local tales of smuggling, small coves, and fishing towns. A coastline rich in both oral and written history. In these books of Crowe, the landscape and its many...