When it’s your job to sit on your own dreaming up imaginary companions, it’s good to get out of the house now and then.
Crimefest was a real tonic – a lively mix of readers, writers and publisher-types, and a rare chance to meet some of Ruso and Tilla’s friends from the States.
Thanks to everyone who saved me from the fate of the splendid Parnell Hall, and thanks to Annie Porthouse, author of ‘Dear Bob’, for the link that reveals his take on every writer’s nightmare:
I’m off to Cheam Library tomorrow evening to join a panel discussing Techno-Crime – the details are here.
Hopefully there will be a good number of folk willing to join in. If not, I’ll have to take up songwriting.
Ruth Downie 
My daugher and I enjoyed meeting you at Crimefest and are looking forward to the fourth Ruso. Any hints about his adventures in that book?
Hope we didn’t embarrass you when we accosted you in the lift.
Hello Carol,
It was lovely to meet you too and no, I wasn’t embarrassed, I was actually quite excited as I never expect anybody to have heard of me! If our paths cross again, remind me that we’ve met on the blog. (And no, I don’t know why they change the spellings either, but I’m just grateful to be published, and leave that sort of thing up to them.)
As for Ruso 4 – he and Tilla are back in Britain, where Valens has kept his promise to find Ruso a job – except that, to Ruso’s disgust, it’s not in medicine. He’s being sent to hunt down a tax collector who’s disappeared along with the cash. Meanwhile Tilla has befriended the man’s wife, who of course insists that he’s innocent…