Authors Electric

Huge jollities over poor old Rudy. The weekend when Endeavour Books put Death Order up for free, the Independent did a huge story headlined Adolf Hitler's Nazi deputy Rudolf Hess ‘murdered by British agents’ to stop him spilling wartime secrets - which is the nub of the novel. Within hours the Daily Mail had lifted the Indy’s story, and fully credited their source, which in modern journalism terms might be something of a first! They also added a further twist: Nazi Rudolf Hess was 'murdered by British agents in prison to stop him revealing war secrets but Scotland Yard was told NOT to investigate' Both papers named the Scotland Yard detective who undertook the enquiries – Detective Chief Superintendent Howard Jones – and also revealed that his investigation had been abruptly terminated on the orders of the DPP! They also named the British Army surgeon, Dr Hugh Thomas, who said the medical evidence proved that the prisoner who died in Spandau could not hav...

Deadlines – as Ann Evans was saying just a blink ago – doncha just love ‘em? Following the principle that there’s more to life than working, or even writing, I found myself this week towing a twenty foot sloop from the north to the south to launch and berth her with my brother-in-law near Portsmouth. The sun was shining, all was delight. Two days later, soaked, frozen, and exhausted, I noticed the date. It’s Friday evening now. I've just got home. You’ll be reading this, sensation seekers, within brief hours of me finishing it. Okay? I also came to realize that I’d put a day-specific post on my own blog – janneedle.com – last week, and the event I was talking about, and appearing in, had come and gone. One never knows if anyone reads these things, but if they do, I need to apologise. Or at least get rid of it, quickly. As quickly as the June weather put paid to my hopes of nautical bliss (suntan included). A third thing, now remembered, gnaws at me. I’ve ...