I had a great evening on Tuesday, travelling down to London (well, technically Hampton, but anything inside of the M25 is London to a Midlander like me) with a mate to see two of our favourite authors: Meg Gardiner and Peter Robinson were interviewed and read a brief extract from their new books in front of an intimate audience of forty or so people, which had been organised by CrimeSquad.com and hosted by Andrew Clark.

I have met Meg on a number of occasions and she never fails to be entertaining. Peter was good value too – relatively quiet spoken, but with a dry sense of humour. When asked about comparisons between himself and his main character, DI Alan Banks (DCI now!), he tried to distance himself, but I think I could see more of DCI Banks in him than perhaps he could. Not sure if my fellow audience members would agree?

It always surprises me – no, I don’t think surprise is the right word as I’m not surpised, perhaps amazed is more appropriate – that these events are not better attended. So many people devote a large amount of their spare time to reading these authors, yet so few attend these kind of things to actually meet the people behind the novels. I guess that unless you’re local to an event, then you only find out about them if you’re geeky enough to visit the authors’ websites on a regular basis. Mmm… that must be me then!

Peter Robinson doing well to hide his concern about the future competition for shelf space

 

A relaxed Meg Gardiner having long ago concluded, “Competition. What competition?”

 

And yes, I did take the friend along as protection, after what happened last time!