I realise that I haven't talked about the novel at all, more as a passing reference, but maybe that's as well, because I haven't finished it yet, and who knows what I might do to it when I embark on the second draft.

I've, of course, allowed myself to be diverted, into food in the last case. This is one theme I am trying to avoid in the novel, even though it is hard to avoid when it is so integral to both Italian, and in rather a different way, to Greek life. No doubt there will be a taverna/trattoria scene with people making their way through mounds of moussaka/seafood pizza, and someone comes in wielding a carving knife/mixer/poison-tip umbrella/ deadly jellyfish. I can almost guarantee that there will be some kind of contretemps involving a sinister chef, a manic, babbling waiter, a fishy waitress, several pots of Marmite, a gawping customer, a femme fatale with a cleft stick and bottles of champagne, a bruiser with a face like a moussaka, a girl with a face like a sheep, an actual sheep, a dead mosquito, a fisherman with eyes like a sad cow, a sad cow with eyes like a fisherman, a deadly dose of spaghetti a la Agatha Christie, or venomous bean soup a la Patricia Cornwell, and the usual retinue of bibulous policemen, drunk inspectors, derelict detectives on Drambuie and dope, alcohol-swilling moles, Sambucha and Schnapps-sipping spies, and of course William the Wino lying outside in a heap while inside the trattoria/taverna bedlam, mayhem and murder all take place. Oh, and we mustn't forget the Totty-Transfixed Token Tourist.