A Note from Pete – September 2026

September 2026 · Issue No. 2

Hi there

Welcome to the September newsletter. It’s been a very busy few days with the BookBub Featured Deal and an emergency operation to deal with. For some reason the surgeon wouldn’t let me check how the Featured Deal was running whilst I was in theatre. Can’t understand it myself. Anyway, all better now and we crack on.

FROM THE CASE FILES

This month's true story.

This month’s true story isn’t one of mine. It’s my ex-wife’s, and it’s the other side of the job I don’t often talk about.

I sent a message to her recently (she’s remarried but we are still friends), asking for a bit of a rundown of what those years were actually like from where she was standing. Reading it back, I realised I’d never really told it from that angle before, and it’s about time I did. So here it is, in her words.

“Before mobile phones, I never knew when, or if, you’d actually be home. That uncertainty was a weight of its own. There were the nights after work when I had no idea where you were. There was the day Hannah asked me, out of nowhere, ‘Does Daddy still live here?’ That one still stings.

I was effectively raising the children on my own a lot of the time. Plans I made for myself got cancelled at the last minute more often than not, and weekends I might have hoped to share went instead to other things. So I’d take the children and get on with my own thing.

All of that while I worked full time until three weeks before Samuel was born, then part time, then at one point held several jobs at once, before going full time again in London. It was hard on the wife left holding it all together.”

Twenty-three years on, I can see it more clearly than I could then. It’s part of why I write the family strain into Tom Kessler’s world with a straight face. I didn’t have to imagine it. I was tempted to write my side of this but I think that would disrespect what Leigh has written.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON

I have added a prologue to Book 6, A Dangerous Alliance, the reasons for which will become clear when you read it. I'm not normally a fan of prologues but they can have their place. There are things you have to avoid when you have one. Development of characters, over description, heavy exposition, and long dialogue. A prologue should hook the reader and then get out of the way, not slow things down before the story has even started. I’m confident I’ve done that.

I've also spent hours adding a store to the website. From here you can now buy signed copies of the books, which is a nice way to support me directly if you'd like to. Postage on those goes out in specialist boxes, so it isn't cheap to run, but that's on me, not you to worry about. Postage to any UK address is included. If anyone from outside of the UK wants something, email me and I'll check out postage costs. If the cost works for you, we'll sort it out from there.

I'll be adding 'merch' here as and when I get the time. I think it's something people might like.

Finally, and I’ll report back on this one at the time, we have another BookBub Featured Deal running, this time on A Minister’s Downfall. That will run for five days from the 24th to the 28th of September. I am very grateful to BookBub for taking on A Detective’s Dilemma and doubly so for this next one. I’ll do a blog on this one too.

WHAT I'M READING

I’ve had a couple of DNFs recently (because this can be a personal choice, it’s unfair to name them), but a series I have enjoyed is Tom Bradby’s ‘Kate Henderson’ series. Secret Service, Double Agent and Triple Cross are the three I’ve listened to on Audible. Just like mine, they get better as you go through the series.

Another one I revisited as it’s a favourite is David Gilman’s Night Flight to Paris. A second world war thriller that I really enjoyed.

Finally, I have now gone back to an old John le Carré favourite of mine, Agent Running in the Field, which is narrated by the author.

OVER TO YOU

I have answered lots of your questions over the last couple of weeks or so, but keep them coming. It really spurs me on to see the effect my writing has.

If there’s anything you would like to see in the newsletter, just let me know and I’ll fit it in.

All the best for another month.

Pete