The City Has Eyes: CCTV in London
If, like me, you’re a Yank, living on this side of the Atlantic you have an expectation of privacy when you go out to stroll the streets of your favorite large American City. You don’t expect cameras to be watching.[i] Londoners KNOW they are. London ranks as the number one “most spied-on city” in the…
Read MoreLondon Circa 1666—oh the smell!
And By Fire is a dual timeline crime novel. While Nigella and O’Leary race around modern London trying to stop a brutal killer, a second pair of unlikely detectives (a lady-in-waiting to the Queen and a royal fireworks maker) search for a missing friend—a bookseller who disappeared into the smoke of London’s Great Fire some…
Read MoreLike a Fighter: Why the burned dead sometimes look like they are ready to punch you
Ever wondered why a burned corpse sometimes has its hands up like the fists of a boxer? Of course you haven’t! Because you are a normal person. But I am a Crime writer. And that means my thoughts often move in detailed and macabre directions. Frankly my search history is SCARY. [That’s actually a great…
Read MoreLondon “Hot Spots”—Sir Christopher Wren’s Monument to The Great Fire of London
In And By Fire Detectives Nigella Parker and Colm O’Leary race through London tracking a murderous arsonist who makes sculptures using burnt flesh along with burnt wood. You may not be able to hop a plane or train to follow in my DI’s footsteps, but in a string of posts I am calling “London Hots…
Read MoreThe London City Police—Protecting One Square Mile
There are two Londons. Most people don’t realize that when they pop into the British capital as tourists. They aren’t aware, as they race from the Tower to St. Paul’s Cathedral, from Christopher Wren’s Monument to the Great Fire to Harrods, that they are crossing and recrossing the boundaries between two independent Londons. Sometimes called…
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