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Life has certainly been very busy in my other incarnation as a Headmaster of a large comprehensive school on the borders of east London.  Sometimes I draw gentle amusement from the paradox.  Here am I who, during the day, works as a catholic headmaster, whilst at night I plot the most devious, blood splattered murders.

Every happiness and success for the New Year and beyond.  I do hope you and your families are well and not too blighted by the dreaded Covid.  I am on holiday at the moment from my day job as a headteacher but I have been fairly busy writing.  There is a new Athelstan coming out later in the Spring “The Hanging Tree”.  When I was devising the plot I kept thinking of Chaucer’s much quoted phrase, “the love of riches is the root of all evil”.  Chaucer then brilliantly develops this in his “The Pardoners Tale”.

I hope this newsletter finds you well as we hopefully approach the general easing of the Covid restrictions.  I certainly won’t weep to see them go.  It’s been rather tough hasn’t it?  As you may know, I am headmaster of a large comprehensive school and it has been trying.  We virtually had to run the GCSE and A Levels ourselves and this created a vast amount of hard work.  Of course, the people I really feel for are the students.  Anyway, the sun is breaking through and perhaps we may have a good summer.

I do hope this finds you and yours in the best of health despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  Covid-19 reminds me of the Great Mortality of 1348 though of course the bubonic plague was even nastier.  Plagues in history have always fascinated me.  Quirks like there was a great plague in 1720, another in 1820 and the more recent Spanish Flu in 1920.  Some historians argue that humanity’s last great war will be between us, or rather our descendants, and some truly hideous virus.

My darling wife Carla died in December 2016 and that really threw me. I intended to restore the newsletter but of course COVID-19 hit us. I am a Head Teacher of a large mixed comprehensive school in East London so you can imagine I had my work really cut out for me. It would seem that matters are beginning to improve slowly. My school opens on Monday 8th March and we will get back to some sort of normalcy. I did keep my hand in when it comes to writing, in fact I found it both a relief and a very powerful distraction from ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune’.

Greetings to all my readers both at home and abroad. My deepest apologies for not being in touch sooner, but its been a very hectic year in education and there has been a gap in my novels published by both Severn House and Hodder Headline.

I hope this newsletter finds you well and that you and yours had a most enjoyable summer.  I am looking forward to the publication of a new Athelstan novel 'The Mansions of Murder' (Severn House) as well as the "Devil's Wolf" (Hodder Headline).  Both books should be on the market by December. 'The Mansions of Murder' will lead you into the truly, hellish life of medieval London.  It has already received excellent reviews and I am pleased to copy one from Kirkus: it reads as follows:

A very happy New Year to all of you. I hope you had a wonderful festive season. I am afraid mine was dominated by the death of my beloved wife Carla. She was diagnosed with Myeloma, a very aggressive blood cancer in the spring of 2015. She died on 6th December, her requiem being celebrated on the 21st. I must mention this as I feel that I cannot ignore something which has had such a lasting impact.

The festive season has come and gone; I hope for all of you it was a time of rejoicing, merriment and happiness. I certainly looked forward to this wonderful time spent with our every increasing family, as I do to quiet hours at my desk plotting murder, mystery and mayhem! The next Athelstan book, THE HERALD OF HELL is now finished with its sequel, THE EARTHWORMS, well on its way.

Please accept my profuse apologies for the silence over the last few months.  As you know, by night I plot the most horrid murders, usually based in medieval London; by day I am a Headteacher of a large high school in Woodford Green. Recently, I was approached by the local education authority and asked to take over the running of a Jewish comprehensive, King Solomon in Barkingside.