Today I’m delighted to feature author Owen Mullen.  Owen is a Bloody Scotland McIlvanney Crime Book Of The Year long-listed novelist and his novel And So It Began was a Sunday Times Crime Club ⭐Star Pick. It will come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog, that I already own a number of Owen’s books, maybe this is the reminder I need to bump them up my tbr mountain.

About Owen

Owen Mullen is a critically acclaimed and best selling author.

Owen graduated from Strathclyde University, moved to London and worked as a rock musician, session singer and songwriter, and had a hit record in Japan with a band he refuses to name; he still loves to perform on occasion. His passion for travel has taken him on many adventures from the Amazon and Africa to the colourful continent of India and Nepal. A gregarious recluse, he and his wife, Christine, split their time between Glasgow, and their home in the Greek Islands where Owen writes.

Over to Owen:-

 

Which 5 pieces of music/songs would you include in the soundtrack to your life and why?

Twist and Shout by the Beatles… This is the first record that made the hairs on my neck stand on end. That crescendo in the middle was the most exciting musical thing I’d ever heard. That was the spark that sent me towards being a professional musician.

Higher Love by Stevie Winwood…Stevie has always been one of my favourite musicians and this is from one of my all-time favourite albums of his. This reminds me of living in London doing recording sessions during the day and playing the club circuit at night. London is still my favourite city, I can still feel it’s atmosphere and hear it’s sounds.

Gloria by Laura Branigan…I remember dancing to this with my girlfriend – now my wife, in a club late at night. At the end of the song I proposed to her.

Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty… I’d just come out the end of a very difficult period. It was a wonderful summer day, the windows were down, this came on the radio and I turned the volume up full – it felt good to be alive.

Need Your Love So Bad by Fleetwood Mac… Now, at home I sometimes pick up the guitar and sing this to myself. It’s just a great blues love song.

Highlight 5 things (apart from family and friends) you’d find it hard to live without.

Chocolate… Speaks for itself, doesn’t it.

Coffee…It’s one of the things Christine and I love. I’ve lost count of the times we’ve sat in street cafes – in Paris, Saigon, Delhi, or even Glasgow – watching the world go by over the rims of our coffee cups.

iPad… I’m newly converted – and I love it! There’s a whole world in there and I’m trying to see it all. I could easily lose hours surfing all the things that interest me from Grand Designs, football and wonderful chefs to interviews with great actors, writers and musicians. And of course the latest political antics.

Books… In the last twelve years, since I’ve been writing I haven’t had enough time for the reading I’d like to do. That said, I find books a constant source of inspiration and reinvention.

Sunshine… It’s amazing how used to it I’ve become, to the point I now take it for granted. But it only takes a visit home to Scotland to remind me how fortunate I am to live in a Mediterranean climate.

Can you offer 5 pieces of advice you’d give to your younger self?

Understand that life has unwritten rules… The sooner you can get a hold of this the better. Actions have consequences. So do inactions.

Decide early where you want to end up and don’t get distracted… Really wish I’d latched on to this one. My CV looks like Alan Wicker’s passport. I’d have started writing at least twenty years earlier.

Know when you’re doing well…I would find myself in an airport heading to some wonderful foreign destination looking at the departure board and wishing I was going somewhere else.

You’re not lazy…For years I thought I was and gave myself a hard time. Turns out I’m the opposite.

Don’t be in such a hurry…Relax, enjoy the journey.

 

Tell us 5 things that most people don’t know about you.

I’m a good cook.

I don’t like heights.

I don’t like snakes – so if I met a tall snake I’d be in trouble!!

I don’t sing in the shower.

I hate wet socks.

 

What are the first 5 things you’d have on your bucket list?

 

Travel round India again.

See Billy Joel at Madison Square Gardens.

Get a season ticket for the Emirates.

Have a book at No.1 on the New York Times Best Sellers.

For our honeymoon we went to the far East for a month – I would love to do that again with Christine.

Thanks so much for sharing with us today Owen – we’ll all still have to wait to discover just who that band was! I’m with you with Gerry Rafferty, I love Baker Street (and City to City would be one of my all time favourite albums). You are now also a member of the ‘Chocolate and Books Club’ as they are proving to be things that most of happily admit to (and enjoy). I like your advice to ‘enjoy the journey’ it is too easy to not appreciate the here and now. I really hope you get that Number One best seller, it could fund that travelling that’s still to be done. 

 

Owen’s Books

 

 

Deadly Harm – sequel to In Harm’s Way

It’s been five years since Mackenzie Darroch was abducted and held captive in a derelict house.

She thought she’d found her way out of the darkness. She was wrong.

When she witnesses a car crash and saves the driver’s life, it sets in motion a chain of events that will alter both their futures.

The two women get involved in a high profile police case and draw the attention of a ruthless reporter. Gina Calvi is convinced Mackenzie is not what she appears and is prepared to do anything to prove it.

Meanwhile, across the city, Kirsty McBride, a young single mother, is persuaded to leave a violent relationship. Her partner, Malkie Boyle a Glasgow hardman, is due to be released from prison. Once back on the street and bent on revenge, Boyle is determined to find the people responsible for stealing his family from him.

Can Mackenzie save them or will Boyle get his revenge?

 

 

In Harm’s Way

When no one knows you are in danger how can you ever be saved…

The Baxter house in the Lowther Hills, in Scotland, has been on the estate agent’s books for decades. Dilapidated and near-derelict, nobody is interested in it. But, for one potential buyer, the remote location and rat-infested cellar are perfect.

For the first year, Mackenzie’s marriage to Derek was ideal. But Derek believes she is having an affair and when she realises her husband is becoming controlling, she knows she’s made a terrible mistake.

But Mackenzie has a drinking problem so when she threatens to leave Derek and then disappears no one believes she has been abducted.

DS Geddes is handed the case but isn’t convinced anything criminal has taken place until a startling development comes to light.

Has Mackenzie been abducted or has she simply left her husband?

And who has bought The Baxter house and for what purpose?

 

 

Out of the Silence

Star investigative reporter Ralph Buchanan’s glory days are behind him. His newspaper has banished him abroad, not knowing the greatest moment of his long career is waiting for him there.

When Simone Jasnin asks him to help expose a grave injustice, he finds himself embroiled in a harrowing tale that began in a dusty rural settlement, setting in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of everyone involved.

Seven years later, members of a prominent family are being brutally murdered one by one. The only clue is a hand-carved wooden bangle left at the scene of each crime.

As the list of suspects grows and the tension mounts, Ralph realises the answers might be closer to home than he ever thought possible.

Solving the mystery will put him back on top but at what cost?

Only when the smoke clears will the killing stop and honour be satisfied…

 

 

And So It Began : Delaney

PI Vincent Delaney thought he was done with the NOPD until a string of seemingly unrelated child murders brings an unexpected invitation from the FBI, and his old boss.

A serial killer is roaming the South, preying on children appearing in pageants, and the police want him to go undercover using his own family. Accepting would mean lying to people he loves and maybe even putting them in harm’s way.

In Baton Rouge, a violent criminal has escaped and is seeking revenge for the brother Delaney shot dead. But Delaney isn’t going anywhere. He has unfinished business.

Meanwhile, north of the French Quarter, shopkeepers are being extorted and ask for Delaney’s help. Extortion is a matter for the police.

But what do you do when those responsible are the police? Delaney has his work cut out and he’ll be lucky if he makes it out of this alive…

 

P.I. Charlie Cameron Series

 

Games People Play (PI Charlie Cameron Book 1)

Thirteen-month-old Lily Hamilton is abducted from Ayr beach in Scotland while her parents are just yards away.

Three days later the distraught father turns up at private investigator Charlie Cameron’s office. Mark Hamilton believes he knows who has stolen his daughter. And why.

Against his better judgment Charlie gets involved in the case and when more bodies are discovered the awful truth dawns: there is a serial killer whose work has gone undetected for decades.

Is baby Lily the latest victim of a madman?

For Charlie it’s too late, he can’t let go.

His demons won’t let him.

 

 

Old Friends and New Enemies (PI Charlie Cameron Book 2)

The body on the mortuary slab wasn’t who Glasgow PI Charlie Cameron was looking for.

But it wasn’t a stranger.

Suddenly, a routine missing persons investigation becomes a fight for survival. As Charlie is dragged deeper into Glasgow’s underbelly he goes up against notorious gangster Jimmy Rafferty and discovers what fear really is.

Rafferty is so ruthless even his own sons are terrified of him.

Now he wants Charlie to find something. And Jimmy Rafferty always gets what he wants.

There is only one problem… Charlie doesn’t know where it is.

 

 

Before the Devil Know You’re Dead

Gavin Law was a whistleblower.

Now he’s missing.

Just another case for Glasgow PI, Charlie Cameron, until he discovers there is more to Law and his disappearance than anyone imagined.

Wallace Maitland, the surgeon responsible for leaving a woman brain-damaged may have abandoned his sacred oath and become a killer. Did the hospital which refused to accept responsibility for the tragedy have Law silenced permanently? Or, with his wife little more than a vegetable, has David Cooper, believing he has been betrayed yet again, taken justice into his own hands?

Charlie comes to realise the world of medicine can be a dangerous place.

Across the city, East End gangster, Sean Rafferty is preparing to exploit the already corrupt city council in a multi-million pound leisure development known as Riverside. The project will be good for Glasgow. But not everybody is keen to work with Rafferty.

With more than money at stake, Sean will do anything to get his way. His motto, borrowed from his old man, is simple. Never take a no from somebody who can give you a yes.

If that means murder, then so be it.

Charlie has crossed Rafferty’s path before and lived to tell the tale.

He may not be so lucky a second time.

 

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