Dear Reader,

 

Hello once again. If you’ve read The Old Religion, that is. And if you have, then thank you so much. I really appreciate you doing so and hope you enjoyed it. Obviously I’d prefer you to love it but if not then fine then I hope you had some kind of strong reaction to it rather than just, ‘Meh’. Because after all, the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. That’s a quote from Dynasty.

However if you haven’t read The Old Religion and this is your first one of mine, then welcome aboard. I’m very happy to have you. And I hope that feeling is mutual. If you want to know a bit more about me and The Sinner then read on. If you don’t, then fine. I’m sure you’ve got a Netflix subscription or something.

First, here’s a bit about me. The Sinner is my twentieth novel. Hooray. I’ve managed to keep going for that long. Most of the novels under my own name have been gritty (I’m contractually obliged to use that word) urban noir settings, mainly in my native North East of England. I’ve also written eight thrillers under the pseudonym Tania Carver. And I was chosen to write Angel of Death – the official sequel to Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black. I’ve won awards and been in the bestseller lists, both here and abroad. The Old Religion was something of a departure for me. My first novel with a totally rural setting incorporating elements of folk horror. I loved writing it and a sequel was inevitable. However I didn’t want to just repeat myself. I wanted something a little different. The result is The Sinner.

Not everyone in prison is guilty. Great tag line for the cover. (I didn’t think of it, incidentally. I just handle the bits inside.) And it’s kind of true. I used to work in prisons and young offenders institutions as a Writer in Residence. The first thing that struck me was just how arbitrary the justice system is. Every single prejudice and cliché that I had about was confirmed straightaway. The richer you are, the less time you do and the punishment is inversely in proportion to how much money you have or where you are on the social scale. But I’ve written elsewhere about that. I’m here to talk about The Sinner.

I was aware that it was going to be a follow up to The Old Religion, using the same lead character, Tom Killgannon. Whereas the first book had used all these sweeping open spaces, this one would be cramped and claustrophobic. The Old Religion played with folk horror. This would have the vibe of a haunted house. I wanted every character (or nearly every character) to be guilty of something. To be haunted – imprisoned, if you will – by their past actions. To be the sinners of the title. Also, and rather incongruously considering it’s set in a prison, I wanted a homage, at least in part, to Geoffrey Household’s classic novel of rural pursuit, Rogue Male. Did I manage? Read the book and find out . . .

By the way, if you would like to hear more from me about The Sinner and my other future books, you can visit www.bit.ly/MartynWaitesClub where you can join the Martyn Waites Readers’ Club. It only takes a moment, there is no catch and new members will automatically receive an exclusive ebook short story from my previous novel, The Old Religion. Your data is private and confidential and will never be passed on to a third party and I promise that I will only be in touch now and again with book news. If you want to unsubscribe, you can of course do that at any time.

However, if you like what you read then please let people know. Social media (I’m on Twitter as @MartynWaites), Amazon, GoodReads, all of that. It really does make a difference for writers.

But enough of my yakkin’. It’s time to get banged up with The Sinner. Enjoy, dear reader . . .

 

All the best,

 

Martyn Waites