A first novel retains a special position in the hearts of most writers, and I can still recall the thrill of reading the letter from Rosemarie Hudson of BlackAmber Books in London which informed me that she wished to publish WHAT GOES AROUND. I had spent the previous three years sending submissions to publishers and agents and received rejections from them all, one of which described the contents of my story ‘inflammatory’. It was only as time passed that I grew to realise just how brave Rosemarie’s decision had been and that she remains a rare champion of diversity in British publishing. I am sure that even a quarter of a century later I would still probably face much of the same difficulties in getting published even though the novel garnered many positive reviews, one of which featured in The Times, said that WHAT GOES AROUND ‘is a deftly assured debut which provides British crime writing with a vibrant new voice.’

My story about how different characters strive for justice in an inner-city in England was finally put down on paper in the early 1990s but it was radically altered by a trip I made to Belfast with a friend. Upon my return home, I rewrote the story to include some of what I had heard and witnessed in that part of Ireland.

Over the next weeks and months, I will be posting a number of articles about the lives, times and crimes that shaped my story. I will endeavour to explain how the novel’s characters and themes were influenced by real people and events and how, almost a decade after it was published, life imitated art when my book was introduced as evidence in an arms trial in Ireland that was for a time linked with the notorious 2004 Northern Bank robbery in Belfast and a bizarre twist in the case that would rival any work of fiction.