David Robinson – Writer

I was talking with my very good friend Trevor Belshaw yesterday. A fine writer, creator of the bestselling Amy Rowlings Mysteries (link to the latest is below). During the course of our conversation, he pointed out that quite often I can’t make my mind up whether I do better with light-hearted, amateur sleuth style, traditional mysteries or the more serious works such as the Feyer & Drake series or the really deep and dark, psychological thrillers produced under my pen name Robert Devine.

I’ve much to thank him for, because the observation is accurate. I do chop and change, and it’s all about those mood swings. When I’m on the up I’ll work with Joe Murray and the Sanford 3rd Age Club, or Christine Capper. But for an ageing workaholic like me, there are those times when I go down, and that’s when the dark side emerges. It’s during such periods that Robert Devine comes to the fore, or the traumatic history of Sam Feyer and Wes Drake takes over.

It’s ancient history but I started with the really deep, dark stuff, put together then as a five-hour TV series. We were promised a commission, but it never happened, and that’s when I switched to writing novels in preference to scripts. It was only later as I turned 50, and my wife and I finally settled into a placid middle age, that I began to look at one of my major assets: my sense of humour. Coupling that to murder mysteries brought Joe, Sheila, Brenda out into the open, and a few years later, Christine Capper followed.

If I’m brutally honest, I’m far happier with the adventures of Joe and Christine, and the natural humour which stems from Dennis’s obsession with work, or Brenda’s habit of winding Joe up.

Judging from the feedback, the same can be said of my readers. They’re far happier with the light-hearted mysteries than the serious stuff. And by the way, I do love your feedback. If nothing else, it drags me back on the right track.

Even so, I still turn to darker works now and again, and I recently posted 2 of Robert Devine’s full-length, psychological thrillers to Amazon: Dominus and its sequel The Power. In fact, the main reason I put them up was because they were the only two books in my entire catalogue which were not represented. I don’t expect miracles from them, but again the links are at the bottom of the page.

Beyond that, of course, I have two Feyer & Drake titles published with Bloodhound Books: The Anagramist and The Frame, and more are in the pipeline.

What’s the solution to this up, down, up, down, up, down situation? Well, if I had the answer to that, I’d probably be a psychiatrist and even crazier than I am right now.

For now, however, I can tell you that Trevor’s observation has caused some serious thinking, and just to cheer you up, I’m now working on the 12th of Mrs Capper’s Casebooks and the 27th Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery. Both should be with you very shortly.

And just to finish off this post, here are the links.

The Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries: https://mybook.to/stacser

Mrs Capper’s Casebooks: https://mybook.to/cappseries

Allan Cain thrillers (written as Robert Devine): https://mybook.to/cainser

The Feyer & Drake series. https://geni.us/TheAnagramist

And finally, as a thank you to Trevor, here’s the link for his 5th Amy Rowlings mystery, Ten Years After, which is due for release by Spellbound Books on September 25. It’s available for preorder now at: https://mybook.to/hCWb3h

It’s a long time since I last posted anything to this blog. January 2023 if you’re counting. So I made the decision to remove all previous posts and start afresh with the intention of maintaining a regular blog. That’s the intention. Quite how it will work out in practice, we’ll have to wait and see.

Last week (August 14 to be precise) Bloodhound Books released the first two books in the Feyer & Drake series, The Anagramist and The Frame. These are darker works than the ones I normally produce. Quite hard-boiled in their own way.

The Anagramist tells the tale of DCI Samantha Feyer, a woman damaged and abused by her colleagues after sending her ex-husband to prison for life. Appointed by her superiors, Wes Drake is her counsellor, a man tormented after receiving cryptic notes from a serial killer. When the killer’s actions become more personal, Drake needs help, and it comes from Sam. A damaged woman, a man tormented, will they unmask the killer, will they survive the encounter?

The Frame sees Sam fully recovered, and head of CID in the Yorkshire seaside resort of Landshaven, where a woman serving a life sentence had been released after just four years. Drake – a wreck of a man – is called to assist in the fresh investigation, and despite the tensions between the pair, they are compelled to work together. Will they uncover the truth about the murder of Barbara Shawforth? Will they be able to tear down the wall that has come between them?

Both books are available for the Kindle and in paperback, and I’ll give you both links now.

The Anagramist: https://geni.us/TheAnagramist

The Frame: https://geni.us/The-Frame

I haven’t produced any new work since last Christmas, and a major reason for this was the impending closure of my publisher, Darkstroke Books. It meant all the titles I had with them (over 30) would  revert to me and would need republishing. I’m now about 70 percent of the way through that process, focusing mainly on the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries. I’ve had to create new covers for them, and frankly they don’t sell very well. That’s hardly surprising. Some of them date back to 2012.

In respect of this, I’ve decided that 24 of the existing 26 titles will be put together in the shape of boxed sets. They’ll still be available as individual titles. Of course they will. But the first of those boxed sets is now available on Amazon, and you can find it at:

https://mybook.to/stabox1

There are eight titles in the box, the first eight of the series as it happens, and if you take the boxed set rather than the individual titles, you’ll be getting them for about half price.

I am a master of the art of messing the job up. It’s a skill that not many people possess, and one I could cheerfully live without. Never was that more apparent than when I uploaded the latest of Mrs Capper’s Casebooks to Amazon a couple of days ago.

I’ve actually been working on this title since the beginning of the year, but it turned out to be one of the most difficult I’ve ever written, and with other work crowding in on me, it’s taken a long time for it to come to fruition. Then, last week, my editor, the inestimable Maureen Vincent-Northam gave me the thumbs up, her son Rhys delivered the cover, and A Quizzical Drowning, Mrs Capper’s Casebook #11 was ready for upload to Amazon.

I intended putting it on pre-order for release on Friday 24 August, but I wasn’t paying sufficient attention, and I clicked ‘publish now’ (or whatever the button says) and low, A Quizzical Drowning was live and on sale.

After receiving a call from someone she didn’t want to talk to, then compelled to interview the egocentric, misogynist presenter of a TV quiz show, Christine finds she needs all of her inquisitive skills when that same presenter is murdered. Is it linked to the drowning of a man in Haxford Reservoir earlier in the year? Is it linked to the murder of a local drug dealer several days after the interview?

I’m not gonna give anything away, but if you’re a fan of Christine, I promise you, you will enjoy this latest tale. And if you’re not a fan, why don’t you give her a try? You’ll still enjoy it.

As with all my work, it’s exclusive to Amazon, free to read on Kindle Unlimited, and also available in paperback. You can download it at:

https://mybook.to/aqd

And that’s all for now.