Dear Andrew Pepper – Do You Have Any Idea Of How Hard It Is To Write A Header About You That Doesn’t Contain The Word ‘Salt’?

The ongoing argy-bargy at Crime Always Pays Towers about what constitutes an Irish crime writer degenerated into switchblades at dawn when Andrew Pepper's (right) name reared its metaphorical head. “Yay!” bellowed the belly-dancing dwarves; “Nay!” screeched the pox-ridden crones from below stairs. Anyhoo, a vote was taken and it was decided that perfidious Albionite Andrew Pepper doesn’t qualify for inclusion on CAP, even though he lives and writes in Ireland, has been nominated for a CWA / Duncan Lawrie New Blood Dagger yokey-bus (in opposition to – oh yes! – bona fide Hiberno-scribblers Brian McGilloway and Declan Hughes), and sees his Last Days of Newgate go paperback in July and then its follow-up, The Revenge of Captain Paine, appear in hardback in August. Sorry, Andrew, but the pox-ridden crones have spoken, sorry, screeched. You know the way it is, man.