Audio book

The Audio Publishers' Association has announced the nominees for the 2010 Audie awards, and the Isis recording of The Dying Breed (US title The Price of Blood) has been nominated in the Mystery category, alongside C.J. Sansom, Walter Mosley, Ross Macdonald and Arthur Conan Doyle (who are these people?) Major credit for this should of course be directed towards my old friend and colleague Stanley Townsend, whose inspired rendering of the book (he do the private eye in different voices) has rightly caught the judges' ears. Stan was a founder member of Rough Magic and we worked together many times, most notably for the purposes of this blog when he played Count Fosco in my adaptation of The Woman in White, complete with six live mice and a climactic swordfight with Walter Hartright (my own rather broad story embellishment), during which, on a newly-varnished dress rehearsal floor, Stan nearly lost an eye. He also played PI Daniel Webster, the hero of Dashiell Hammett's last, "lost" crime novel, in my first play, I Can't Get Started. (Note to Hammett fans: I made it up.) He now enjoys a very successful career on stage and screen. Working with brilliant actors like Stan made me quickly realise that my future lay on the other side of the footlights. I am lucky to have him read my books.