My goodness, Pliny the Elder did not like pearls. Or seafood. “Luxurious living and the corruption of morals arises mostly from shellfish.” (Book 9. 104) Straight from telling us about crabs running backwards and changing into scorpions, Pliny gets right down to the nitty-gritty (oyster and pearl joke there), and goes on: “Out of the whole of the natural world, the sea causes most harm to our stomachs.”

I have a problem; Roman names . . .

Now that I’ve done the – 9th? 10th? – revision of the third novel in my Lucius Sestius trilogy, I am beginning …

Hunter by name – Hunter by nature: DI Hunter Wilson will not rest until Edinburgh is safe. Detective Inspector Hunter Wilson knows there is a new supply of cocaine flooding his city, and he needs to find the source, but his attention is transferred to murder when a corpse is discovered in the grounds of a golf course.