My Writing Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

The year 2024 was a busy one for me. In addition to a heavy workload of ghostwriting, I came out with three books under my own name. 

The first was A Springtime Murder in Berlin, book two of The Berlin Murders. Katherine and her friends are faced with another murder, this time on the set of a movie.

Next I published Cordelia Cracks the Case, the first in Cordelia's Cairo Case Files, a new spinoff series from my Masked Man of Cairo books. A lot of you told me you wanted to see more of Cordelia Russell because the male characters underestimate and overlook her. Hey, it's 1919! So now she's getting her own series of cases.

 

I also kept my most popular series going with Book 6, The Case of the Disappearing Dervish, which sees Moustafa having to return to his village in the Soudan to solve a case implicating his cousin. Sir Augustus and Faisal come along too, of course!

 

So now it's 2025, and later this month I'll be heading to Egypt to write book 7, The Case of the Cackling Crocodile. Our heroes are off to the Fayoum this time, and Cordelia is coming along. I'll also be working on the next Cordelia book.

 

In the summer I plan to release A Summertime Murder in Berlin, followed closely by An Autumn Murder in Berlin, which will round out The Berlin Murders except for an epilogue that I plan to release in 2026.

 

There will be a big change in 2025 as I take fewer ghostwriting assignments and eventually stop before the end of the year. Hopefully that will free up time to come out with some more titles. Stay tuned!

A big thank you to all of you who bought my books in 2024, and a special thank you to all those who reviewed them. As a working writer, that helps a lot!

 

Happy 2025!!!

 

 

Book Six of The Masked Man of Cairo Out Now!!!

 

It's been a while since I posted, and that's because I've been busy traveling and writing. I have just released The Case of the Disappearing Dervish in ebook and paperback. A blurb is below.

A religious scandal. A deadly homecoming.
Moustafa Ghani El Souwaim has come far in life. Raised illiterate in a remote village in the Soudan, he set out at sixteen to better himself. His journey took him to the great archaeological sites of Africa, where he became a leading researcher versed in several ancient and modern languages. His life took an even stranger turn when he teamed up with Sir Augustus Wall and his street boy sidekick Faisal to solve murders.
Now there’s been a murder in his village. A local religious mendicant has been found bludgeoned to death and Moustafa’s cousin, who is in the same religious order, has vanished and is assumed to be the killer. Moustafa must return to his roots to clear his cousin’s name and reunite with the family he left behind.
But can Moustafa really go home again after having changed so much, and does that home even want him?

 

You can get it here. Kindle Unlimited members get to read it for free! 

Back to Blogging!

I've been silent on here for a while. For some reason, blogger won't allow me to log in when I'm in Canada. Not sure why, and tech support has been useless. That's why I haven't posted.

Just a quick update on my work. Book Six of my Masked Man of Cairo series, The Case of the Disappearing Dervish, is now in edits. It will be out in the autumn. Now I'm hard at work on A Summertime Murder in Berlin, book three of The Berlin Murders.

Later in the year I'll be coming out with a novella in my Interzone Mystery series.

You can follow the progress of each of my projects on the sidebar. You might also like to sign up to my newsletter. You get two free ebooks and monthly travel articles, short stories, and updates.

Cordelia Cracks the Case out Now!

 

My latest Cairo mystery is out now. Many of you wanted to hear more about Cordelia, the chief of police's younger sister. She gets a bit overlooked by the guys in the series, even though she's literally been a life saver, so I've given her a case of her own. Cordelia Cracks the Case! If it does well, I'll write more of her adventures. A blurb is below.

Proving yourself can prove deadly
Cordelia Russell hates living life in the shadows. After the Great War, the soldiers got victory parades while the nurses got forgotten. Moving to Cairo to live life on her own terms, Cordelia finds herself overshadowed by her older brother, the chief of the colonial police.
So when she uncovers evidence of a murder at her hospital and no one believes her, Cordelia sets out to solve the case herself. As the Egyptian streets convulse with independence demonstrations and the murderer seeks to silence her, Cordelia finds herself in more danger than she’s seen since the war.
A favorite character from the award-winning Masked Man of Cairo series gets her own series of cases! Join the adventure today!

 

Click here to check it out 

Writing Update!

Hello everyone!

I just got back from southern Egypt, where I was researching Book Six in my Masked Man of Cairo series, called The Case of the Disappearing Dervish. Moustafa has to go back home to the Sudan in order to solve a mystery, and of course Sir Augustus and Faisal come along. It will be out later this year.

I'm also launching a parallel series starring Cordelia, who doesn't get as much page time as she deserves in the main series. Tentatively called Cordelia's Cairo Casebook, it starts with Cordelia Cracks the Case. That's in production and will be out in a couple of months.

I'll soon be diving back into the The Berlin Murders with book three, A Summertime Murder in Berlin. Katherine and friends get tangled up in some pretty nasty business! I'm also (slowly) working on the Tech Scavengers science fiction series.

You can watch the progress of all these projects on the sidebar to the right. You can also follow along by subscribing to my monthly newsletter.

If you want to see more photos of my travels, check out my Instagram!

My Travel Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

 

My 2023 was a busy one for travel, with lots of trips to familiar and not-so-familiar spots.

I went twice to Tangier, my favorite North African city, to show my nephew around. We did some day trips to Asilah and Tetouan and some short hikes. Now he loves Morocco as much as I do! I also went to Egypt for research and my usual Oxford summer stay.

The big trip, however, was living for almost three months in Victoria, British Columbia. I'm Canadian but moved out of the country when I was eight and this was the first time I'd gone back for a significant period. While the town itself was only OK (little culture, too many junkies) the surrounding nature was fantastic. The temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest has to be seen to be believed. I never knew there were that many shades of green!

 

 

 

So what's on the agenda for 2024? Next week I'm off to Egypt again to write Book Six of The Masked Man of Cairo series. The Case of the Disappearing Dervish sees Moustafa having to go back to his village in Nubia to find a lost relative. Sir Augustus and Faisal come along to help. Much of my trip I'll be studying the Nubian villages along the border. Sadly, I can't get into the Sudan given the current situation. I hope it improves soon. The Sudanese people have endured way too much war in recent decades.

There will also be a return trip to Canada, Morocco, Oxford, and maybe a new country. It's been a while since I've gone to a country I've never visited before. My wife and I are thinking Hungary. I've heard Budapest is beautiful. Have any of you been there?

I'll post occasionally here on the blog, but for travel photos the best place to follow me is on my Instagram account. I also include travel articles in my newsletter. You get two free ebooks just for signing up!

Hope you have a great travel year! What do you have planned?

My Writing Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

The year 2023 was a busy writing year as usual for me. I got a lot of ghostwriting assignments that kept me at the keyboard from New Year's through Christmas. Because of that, I only got two of my own books out, the first two books of The Berlin Murders. A Winter Murder in Berlin introduces a new series in which a German-American visits Germany in 1929 during the wild Weimar Era and gets caught up in a murder. A Springtime Murder in Berlin sees her on the case again solving a second mystery.

So far the series is doing well. I'm writing a book for each season, with an epilogue that happens in 1945. It's been a lot of fun to write, with lighter moments and a dark thread through it all. You can't really write about that era and avoid the darkness!

What the readers didn't see were the other books I've been working on. Cordelia Cracks the Case is now with the beta readers. It's part of my popular series The Masked Man of Cairo and follows the solo adventures of one of the minor characters who deserves more page time. That should come out in March.

I'm also halfway through a science fiction trilogy called Tech Scavengers, which is about far-future archaeologists trying to restore a galactic civilization after a cataclysmic fall. I'm going to have a rapid release schedule for those so I'm holding off releasing book one until I have the series mostly complete. Look for those late in 2024.

Coming before then will be The Case of the Disappearing Dervish, Book Six of The Masked Man of Cairo, and A Summertime Murder in Berlin, Book Three of The Berlin Murders. Those will come out in the summer.

Looks like I'm going to have a busy year!