I need a title for the next Simon Serailler crime novel and I haven`t got one. I like to follow the same formula.. The... of ... ' as n The Risk of Darkness.  I had a title for the one I was writing but that has been abandoned. I would ask for suggestions but I`d have to give away something and I mustn`t do that. So I trawl through dictionaries of quotations and so forth and hope for something to leap out at me.

A good title is worth everything. I have just started a very good new novel called WHAT IS LOST... recommended by the boys at Crockatt and Powell - it is their top seller at the moment, which is especially good news as it is 1. a first novel and 2. comes from a very small publisher. But the title does not grab one, any more than does that of the Charlotte Mendelson novel due out soon, WHEN WE WERE BAD....

Why did A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN get a kick start, or LOVE, A USER`S GUIDE, or SPECIAL LESSONS IN CALAMITY PHYSICS ? or A WOMAN`S GUIDE TO ADULTERY...?

So, Simon Serrailler`s guide to love in the Ukraine ? or The Calamitous Loves of .. OK, I won`t call you, you call me. But you get the picture ? That`s why I was so pleased when the children`s story I am racing to finish has a title which came to me in a dream. THE BATTLE FOR GULLYWITH.  Why ? What the... ? Who knows but a whole book got woven round it.

I am also thinking of a title for its successor... so far I`ve got THE FOXES OF WITHERN and THE FIGHT FOR WITHERN FOREST.

Hm