A few paces on and he stopped at the entrance where he had seen the skinny youth enter and emerge. The sign was in full view, Skippers Ope. One skipper or many, he mused; something only a relentless pedant would worry about. Daylight was fading. The ope was an unlit passage between neighbouring terraced houses, roofed by where the upper level walls met.  Bromo looked around. No one to be seen. Curiosity got the better of him and he stepped gingerly into the ope, towards a faint glow several yards further on. The ground was gravel, the walls scuffed and cracked,… Continue reading

Uninvited, but more welcome than a cold shower on a stinking hot day in Melbourne, my muse has reappeared. As usual, she came from nowhere and without a prompt. I was merely taking s stroll (or perhaps I should say ‘we’) to combat inertia, mental as well as physical. And… Continue reading

The most welcome words to a writer’s eye have at last been typed: The End. After far too many months, numerous delays and self-inflicted procrastinations the fifth book in the ongoing Bromo Perkins crime fiction series has been completed. All 95,000 words of it – far more than any of… Continue reading

Into the home straight. The finish line is so close. I can see it, there, emerging from the mists that cloud my mind. All that’s needed is that final surge of creativity, the ramping up of the action, the delivery of drama, the concluding nail-biting moments. Then we can all… Continue reading