OLD NEWS

July 2024

In April, the Cambridge Literary Festival was almost indecently enjoyable. The audience for our event was large and enthusiastic. Nicola Upson, Elly Griffiths and I were not perhaps as serious as respectable crime writers ought to be but you can't have everything, can you?



Afterwards, while I was signing books, a party of charming Chinese PhD students came up to me. They had chosen my first novel, Caroline Minuscule in its Chinese translation, for their book club. It was amazing to realise that the book is over forty years old, but still going strong. I happily signed a large number of copies for them. To cap it all, the students presented me with a copy of the Chinese edition of The American Boy, first published in the UK a mere 21 years ago.





Cambridge had more delights to offer. The following morning I went to the University Library to see the Murder By the Book exhibition. To quote the Library's rather breathless publicity: it's a 'Celebration of 20th Century British Crime Fiction [which] illuminates and celebrates the stories of the UK’s most popular fiction writing, examining crime’s place in our literary history, looking at the Library’s remarkable collection items, and stylish dust jackets, that represent more than a century of British book design.'

Curated by Nicola Upson, the exhibition is a wonderful survey of the genre and its authors. As well as book jackets, it includes other material, such as Agatha Christie's typewriter, Wilkie Collins' travelling writing desk and the correspondence between P.D.James and her publisher about her first novel. To my delight, The Office of the Dead (the concluding novel of my Roth Trilogy) was among the chosen few. Here it is, bracketed by novels by Peter Lovesey and Iain Pears.



We have finally settled on the title of my next novel. This is the book whose working title was Monkshill Park. My editor, my agent and I have decided that it will go out into the world as A Schooling In Murder. After all, the story takes place in a girls' boarding school so that seems fair enough. Set in 1945 during the closing months of World War II, the narrator-detective has the advantage of an unusual viewpoint. HarperCollins UK plan to publish in April 2025.

February 2024

The UK mass-market paperback of The Shadows of London, my latest Marwood and Lovett novel, is published this month. The story turns on the power politics that underlay Charles II's seduction of a young Frenchwoman. Oh, and there's a murder too, and Cat and Marwood also make an interesting personal discovery. You can read a piece I wrote about the book for The Times Crime Club - click here.

The hardback was a Top Twenty bestseller and a Sunday Times Book of the Year. According to the Financial Times, it features 'Taylor at his unassailable best'. The Guardian said the book is 'well up to standard in a series that has set a benchmark for historical mystery fiction'. The Times reviewer thought my 'storytelling brio' was 'on full display'. The Literary Review called it 'masterly… This novel has all the charm of earlier titles in the series but with added substance.' They say that good reviews no longer sell books in the way they once did, but they certainly bring comfort and joy to neurotic authors.

Finally, a glimpse of the future: I've nearly finished the first draft of my next novel. This is a standalone whodunit set in 1945. If that sounds traditional I can assure you that it's anything but orthodox. After that, and all being well, I shall be returning to James Marwood and Cat Lovett, as their lives move into the turmoil of the later seventeenth century. I can't wait…


February 2023



Here it is at last, THE SHADOWS OF LONDON, the sixth novel in the Marwood and Lovett Restoration series. Formerly known in this household as The Beast, it slunk away from home one day and went to London. There, thanks to the magicians at HarperCollins, it was transformed into the beautiful creature you see above.

Already, a week or two before publication, Barry Forshaw of the Financial Times has issued his verdict: 'This is Taylor at his unassailable best.' I'll take that (with gratitude).

We are having launch party for THE SHADOWS OF LONDON in the Forest of Dean on 2 March - our first flesh-and-blood, bricks-and-mortar launch since Covid struck nearly three years ago. Send an email or message if you'd like to come, and we'll send you full details. We are in the process of finalising other events.

What else? In October, I was in Ledbury with Sarah Hilary and Mick Herron (as part of the Ledburied series of events, curated by Sarah). Thanks to MIck's growing fame, we had a New Yorker journalist in tow (or was it the other way round), which added an agreeably surreal quality to the evening. This is how the journalist described the occasion:

'You could hear the squelch of muck boots and the chattering of knitting needles. “Secrets and Spies” was the evening’s theme. It might have been a garden-club meeting.'

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. I heard no squelching muck boots or chattering knitting needles. But perhaps my attention was elsewhere.
In the photo of the three of us below I look distinctly overexcited. Or perhaps I was just communing with the muse of Poetry.



In the run-up to Christmas I enjoyed co-tutoring an Arvon course with novelist Diana Evans in the spectacular surroundings of The Hurst, deep in rural Shropshire. I've also done the occasional review, most recently of Joseph O'Connor's My Father's House in the Spectator.

And now I'm trying to write the new book…




September 2022

At last the Beast has left home. The Beast is the sixth novel in the Marwood and Lovett Restoration series. The typescript has slunk into the undergrowth, on its way to both my editor and my agent. Why the Beast? Well, this book has been a Beast to write. Of course all books are beast to write, but for some reason this one has been a bigger beast than usual. It deserves its capital letter. They say hard writing makes easy reading…

The previous working title was The Dark Queen, but it's now called THE SHADOWS OF LONDON, which I hope you'll all agree is a much better title. UK publication is currently scheduled for 2 March 2023.

In July I was at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was my first major live festival since Covid struck, which made it special. That and the people, of course. You can see some of the riff-raff I had to consort with here:



In other news, I review occasionally, mainly in The Times, the Spectator and the Guardian. Here are links to my most recent - the Spectator review of Martin Edwards' Life of Crime, his witty and authoritative history of the genre, and the Observer review of Robert Harris's Act of Oblivion.March 2022

The Royal Secret, the fifth and latest in the Marwood and Lovett Restoration series, has just been published in paperback. It's available from all good booksellers, among them Waterstones (whose edition includes bonus material) and of course Amazon. In hardback it was a Sunday Times Top Twenty bestseller.

It's also available as an ebook and audiobook, of course. For this month only, the Kindle ebook edition in on sale for .99p.

At present I'm writing the sixth Marwood and Lovett novel. I won't say the end is in sight, but I'm pretty sure that I can see something shimmering on the horizon. The provisional title is The Dark Queen, but of course that's subject to change. UK publication will probably be in Spring 2023.

Several of my other novels are currently available as Kindle deals. At .99p I couldn't resist stocking up on these three novels from my Lydmouth Series set in the 1950s: An Air That Kills, Death's Own Door and Naked To The Hangman. Finally, my very first novel, Caroline Minuscule, published 40 years ago, is also available for .99p, when both its author and the world as a whole were very different from now. But don't delay - these offers are time-limited too.

Talking of Lydmouth, I’ve contributed a new Lydmouth short story, called 'Wrong Notes' to Music of the Night, the latest anthology from the Crime Writers’ Association, edited by Martin Edwards and published by Flame Tree Press. 

In other news, I review occasionally in The Times and the Spectator. I'll be teaching an Arvon fiction course at The Hurst in May, and a morning workshop about plot and narrative for the John Moore Museum at Tewkesbury in July. I'll also be appearing at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Fiction Festival in Harrogate, also in July, See Events for full details.

June 2021

My latest novel is The Royal Secret, the fifth in the Marwood and Lovett Restoration series. It's a Sunday Times Top Twenty bestseller.

'Always riveting… With all his customary deftness and skill, Taylor weaves a colourful, complicated plot involving royal secrets, foreign spies in London and a mangy lion…' Nick Rennison, Sunday Times

'One rereads a Taylor sentence not because his meaning’s unclear but simply to enjoy it afresh. As one can do with his story as a whole... a pleasure from start to finish' Andrew Rosenheim, Spectator

'His characters feel like living people who face real problems in a strange yet instantly recognisable vanished world. Historical crime doesn't get better than this' Mark Sanderson, The Times Crime Club Star Pick.

‘The fifth in Taylor's masterful series of Restoration novels… Typically exuberant fare from the ever-reliable Taylor, incorporating a delicious trip to the hot-bed of intrigue that is the French court’ Barry Forshaw, Financial Times

'People often ask me for a list of my favourite authors. Andrew Taylor’s name is always in the first five…I love this series… an incredible portrait of London after the Great Fire. Dirt, grime, gold, glitter – Taylor serves up all of it…Great fun and perfect summer getaway reading' Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail

In the UK, signed copies are available from Waterstones (a special edition with bonus material), Goldsboro Books, and Rossiter Books. It can also be found at other good bookshops, as well as on Amazon.

And now I am at work on the next novel in the series.


November 2020
The King's Evil won the Gold Crown for 2020, the prize awarded by the Historical Writers Association for the best novel of the historical novel of the year.

The Last Protector was selected as a Guardian Book of the Year.

April 2020
The Last Protector, the fourth Marwood and Lovett novel, has just been published. Set in the violent, politically charged Spring 1668, it deals with surviving members of the Cromwell family after the death of Oliver. Meanwhile, London is slowly recovering from the Great Fire two years earlier.

The first review has just come in: it's from the Sunday Times, and it's a cracker from Nick Rennison: ‘Taylor confirms his status as one of our finest writers of historical thrillers.’

And now on publication day comes another, from Natasha Cooper in the Literary Review: 'Taylor is so at ease with the period… There is colour, violence, devotion, courage and fun here. What more could anyone ask of a crime novel?'

From Antonia Senior in The Times: ‘Taylor is on reliably good form in this fourth instalment of a series that effortlessly blends history and mystery.’
The fabulous cover is based on a contemporary print of Inigo Jones's Covent Garden and is by Andrew Davidson Illustration.

December 2019

The King’s Evil (HarperCollins) has been chosen as a 2019 Book of the Year by both the Sunday Times and the Financial Times. For a selection of reviews, click here.

Books can have a long life. HarperCollins reissued The Second Midnight, my long-lost thriller about an English boy abandoned in Nazi-occupied Prague (November 2019) which I originally published in 1988.


April 2019

The King’s Evil (HarperCollins), the third title in the Marwood-Lovett series, is a Sunday Times bestseller.

’this is historical crime fiction at its dazzling best’ - Guardian

‘Taylor, one of the best historical crime writers today, is on great form with this novel’ - The Times

‘Could be the best yet… vivid and compelling’ - The Observer

‘Few historical novelists write with more authority and a greater sense of authenticity’ - Sunday Times


January 2019

The entire Lydmouth Series (Hodder & Stoughton) reissued in paperback and ebook, equipped with stunning new covers. Audible has recorded all eight novels.