Friday 21 July 2017

K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Stupid

I was working on a bit in my zombie novel Dead Bastards where certain characters need to be in a specific place at a particular time.

I've spent weeks fretting over this, picking the brains of friends and family; it's given me sleepless nights and I’m at the stage where I feel like my brain is about to explode.


Then last night I realised one thing: I was over-thinking it. 

Readers don’t need you to tell them everything. When there are blanks they’ll fill them in and they’ll probably do it even better than you could have ever written it.

Don't over-think thinks like Malcolm In The Middle's Dewey

This realisation got me thinking of one of my favourite ever moments in one of my favourite shows. In Malcolm in the Middle, the youngest brother Dewey comes up with an elaborate ploy to convince idiot brother Reece that the aliens have arrived.

Dewey - "Malcolm, in school we learned the coolest thing: there were these people that did this broadcast to convince everyone that aliens were landing. So what we do is wait for Reese to fall asleep, then we flash some lights outside his window then we go to the TV, but we'll have already made a tape..."

Malcolm – "Dewey, you're totally over-thinking this. Reese, aliens landed down the street!"


And right enough, Reece comes running into the room wearing a mask and wielding a baseball bat and shouting "it’s every man for himself." 

Monday 10 July 2017

The Walking Dead gets real in Scotland - Dead Bastards is now 99c 99p

"Enough gore to satisfy the hungriest zombie fan."



To celebrate the return of Fear The Walking Dead, Dead Bastards is now just 0.99. That's just 99 cents or 99p. 

That's a whole lot of zombie action for less than the price of a cup of coffee. 




LINKS 
You can grab the book here - 

Here's what one reviewer said about Dead Bastards 


Tuesday 2 May 2017

Little Boy Lost - Scotland's Missing Persons Files - Sandy Davidson 


The 3-year-old has been missing for 10 years

There's so much talk about missing Madeline McCann who was 3-years-old when her parents inexplicably left her and her and her and 2-year-old twin siblings in a hotel room in Portugal to go to a tapas bar with friends.

The little girl's disappearance remains unsolved 10 years on. But although it may be one of the most reported missing person cases of all time, it's by far not one of the longest unsolved disappearances of a child from the UK.


Sandy Davidson went missing 41 years ago


Visit the Police Scotland site and there's a grainy black and white image of a wee boy that's almost too difficult to make out because it's so old.

Sandy Davidson has been missing since April 23rd, 1976. He was last seen when he was just 3-years-old.

Sandy was playing in the garden of his grandmother's home in Irvine with his little sister Donna who was 2 and the family dog. It's believed that the dog ran away and Sandy chased after the pooch. The little boy hasn't been seen since.

Despite a thorough search by police and members of the public, they found no trace of the wee boy.

But the authorities have never stopped searching for Sandy and nor has his little sister who was with him that day. Police even released a photo of how Sandy would look today.


How Sandy would look now



So, what could have happened to the little boy lost? 

Theories abound. Could he have been taken by a stranger, a neighbour even? Sandy's parents believe a lonely man who wanted a son took theirs. A man was seen near where Sandy was delivering leaflets.

Work on the new building estate nearby was halted to search for Sandy. Could he have had an accident and ended up being buried in the cement? A new primary school was also being constructed. The school was demolished in 2004, but reports claim authorities refused to search for the missing child's body in the rubble.

Or, could he have drowned in a river close to his grandparents' home whilst he was chasing his pet dog? If he did, why has his body never been found?


New development

Two years ago, a man claimed he was abducted and violently abused by a teenage girl from the same area around the same time Sandy disappeared. See story here

Sandy would be 44 today. He could have had a family. Been a father. A grandfather by now.

But, Sandy Davidson is a wee boy frozen in time. A child who will never age. It seems almost certain that he met with a sad end. Whether it was an accident or someone caused that premature end to a lovely child's life we may never know.


Do you now what happened to the 3-year-old?

Anyone with information can contact Police Scotland on 101. They have the case listed on their website

The family also set up a Facebook page to try and find out what happened to Sandy.




Saturday 29 April 2017

13 Reasons Why 13 Reasons Why doesn't glamorise suicide

***Be warned, this article contains spoilers.***



Like so many people I've been engrossed in the show about a teenage girl called Hannah Baker who takes her own life and leaves 13 cassette tapes behind explaining why.

In some way it seems like the tapes are there to get revenge on everybody who's wronged Hannah and driven her to commit suicide.

There's also been accusations that it glamorises suicide. That is one accusation that I don't agree with.

Here's 13 reasons why 13 Reasons Why doesn't glamorise suicide in my opinion -


The loss of a young life isn't glamorous.

1- There's nothing glamorous about a bright, intelligent girl like Hannah with her whole future ahead of her killing herself because she can't take life any more.

2- The life of the teens depicted on 13 Reasons Why is terrible. The pressures on the students is immense and instead of supporting each other most of them tear each other apart. Bullying is seen as normal.

3- Anything you do or say can be twisted and around the school in seconds thanks to mobile phones and the Internet. Hannah has her first kiss, next she knows the seemingly nice guy turns out to be a jerk who claims she did more than just kiss him.


The obnoxious Bryce.

4- There's nothing glamorous about a girl being raped by her boyfriend's best friend whilst she's incapacitated by alcohol as her boyfriend who should be protecting her walks away. At a time when there's research showing that many young people have a difficult time knowing when rape is rape it highlights something very important.

5- The girls in the show can be real mean girls. One minute they're helping you get home safely, the next they're driving away from an accident that takes out a stop sign and very soon after causes an accident where someone dies.

6- It shows the effects of suicide on the ones left behind.
Watching the heartbreak Hannah's parents go through, especially her mother is gut wrenching. With Clay who loved Hannah, there's also a sense of great loss and of what might have been for him and Hannah.

7- The immaturity of the boys compared to the girls is frequently highlighted throughout the show. They rarely take responsibility for any of their actions or feel any guilt. There's always a sense that if you're good at sport and popular at school you can do whatever the hell you want to.

8- Girls face unbelievable pressure. Either they're frigid or easy. There seems to be no middle ground. And it's not just guys who are judging and rating them, it's the girls who should know better. So much for the sisterhood.

9- The students seem to live in a parallel universe to the teachers and parents and have no support system. They don't let their parents into their lives. Instead they bury all of their pain with drugs and alcohol and by being mean to their peers and oblivious to their pain.

10-  Teachers do try to help, but not near enough and they seem oblivious to what's going on right under their noses. The bullying, the peer pressure, the drugs and alcohol.


Even the seemingly nice guys screw Hannah over.

11- It shows the characters as they really are warts and all i.e not in the least bit glamorous or people we would want to be. Even the wonderful Clay, our main character isn't perfect. Throughout 13 Reasons Why there's a strong sense that if only he'd told Hannah how he felt she would still be alive.

12- We wouldn't want to be anyone in the show. They may be young but none of them seem particularly happy. Hannah killed herself, but it could have just as easily have been anyone else in the show.

13- You spend the whole time watching the show with a sense of deep sadness, a feeling that you want to grab all of the young cast by the scruff of the neck and tell them school doesn't last forever. You have the rest of your life.

Conclusion - Whatever anyone thinks, it has to be a good thing that teenage suicide is at least being discussed. Too many young people are taking their own lives. It's something we need to talk about and if shows like 13 Reasons Why make that happen it has got to be a good thing.

On a personal note, as someone who was bullied mercilessly at school and the place where I lived and who contemplated suicide, I found the show cathartic and grittily realistic. 

Wednesday 22 March 2017

Scotland's Missing Case Files: Moira Anderson - The little girl who never went home


60 years ago Moira Anderson disappeared
There can be few crimes more heinous than the murder of a child. When that's compounded by that child's body never being found, it's particularly cruel to the child's family who are denied the chance to lay their loved one to rest.

Sixty long years ago, a wee girl called Moira Anderson left her grandmother's house in Coatbridge in Scotland to go to the shops. She never returned. It was during a heavy snowstorm and the 11-year-old was last seen boarding a Baxter's bus.

This is not so much a case of who killed the little girl because there seems no doubt about that.


Her killer
Convicted paedophile Alexander Gartshore was driving the bus that day. The bus that tragic Moira got on. Later in the very same year, he was jailed for raping a 17-year-old babysitter.

But Gartshore will never confess to police that he killed Moira or be held accountable because he died in 2006. But there seems few doubts that he murdered the child.

Convicted child abuser James Gallogley said his former friend Gartshore boasted of murdering Moira. He wasn't alone in believing the former soldier took Moira from this world.

Gartshore's very own daughter crime writer Sandra Brown was convinced he was the killer and campaigned to have her father charged. Scottish prosecutors also announced in 2014 that he would have faced prosecution for the schoolgirl's murder if he were still alive.



Police search the canal for traces of Moira

Where he put Moira's body nobody knows. But the search goes on but it might not have had to. In 1957 a man was spotted carrying a large heavy sack towards a canal. The sighting was reported to police but they never acted on it.


The search for Moira 
In 2013, a grave was excavated at Monkland Cemetery in Coatbridge after it was believed that evil Gartshore buried Moira's body in the family plot of an acquaintance. But nothing was found.

As I write this, there's been another update. Along with divers, Police Scotland are retrieving objects from a canal for assessment by forensic experts in the search for the schoolgirl.

Maybe one day very soon, a little girl called Moira can make it home and finally be laid to rest at last.


Moira's memory will live on  
Footnote - Moira Anderson's name continues to live on through the foundation that bears her name and helps survivors of child abuse. 

You can learn more about the foundation here.

March 2017 Update - Sadly, the police found no trace of Moira in the canal. 



Friday 3 February 2017

I'm so excited - Vile City is NOW available on pre-order

Sorry, I haven't been updating you on my progress as regularly as I would like. 

I'd love to say that I'm really a superhero and have been whizzing around saving people and bringing down bad guys. Hey, we can all dream, can't we? 


Sadly, what I haven't been doing is being a superhero. 

What I've really been doing is working on Vigilante City, book 3 in my Detective in a Coma series featuring Inspector Duncan Waddell. A crime thriller where people who seem to have gotten away with murder are being targeted by a vigilante who kills them and shoves a newspaper cutting about the victim's alleged crime down their throats. 

Book 2, Cannibal City - where a killer goes around Glasgow kidnapping men, keeping them alive for weeks and then force-feeding them before killing them and eating their livers - is already written. 





Vile City Pre-order  
The good news though is that Vile City, the first ever book in the series is now available for your entertainment on pre-order in paperback. 

Here's the to Amazon link.

You can read an extract here




Vile City tells Shelley's story of how she tries to make it home.


What's it about then? 
Vile City tells two parallel stories - Detective Inspector Waddell who's trying to catch a killer dubbed as the Glasgow Grabber and two, Shelley Carig, one of his victims who'll do anything to stay alive. 

I also received my copies of Vile City today and I'm so excited. Not only is the cover amazing, its also the first book I've had published with my full name Jennifer Lee Thomson. 

All of my other books have been written as Jenny Thomson (my crime thriller trilogy featuring gutsy Nancy Kerr and her former special forces boyfriend, Tommy McIntyre) and Jennifer Thomson (my self-help books, including Living Cruelty Free: Live a more Compassionate Life and Bullying - A Parent's guide.

My first book coming out with my full name is very important to me as one of the last things my dad said to me before he died after a long, brave battle with cancer was "Why don't you use your middle name?"

So, Vile city and all the other books to come are for you, dad. 


My late dad in his Elvis wig.




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