From the moment the doors opened, the shop was fizzing — full house, all women, all ready for danger, suspense and a good dose of adrenaline. Dominic barely finished welcoming everyone before the room was leaning forward, eager for the action to begin. He introduced Chris, aka C. M. Ewan and our brilliant chair for the night, crime writer and friend of The Bookery Tina Orr Munro, and we were off.

Tina kicked things straight into gear, asking Chris to summarise Eye Spy without giving away too many spoilers. Chris was ready for this and launched into his world of “contained thrillers”: ordinary people, ordinary places, everything going catastrophically wrong. This time, a Eurostar train. Three hours. A four‑year‑old whispering “Bad Man.” A suitcase no one wants near them. And from that moment, the pace of the evening matched the novel — fast, taut, thrilling.

And then came the writing secrets: three months of planning and brainstorming on a huge whiteboard; index cards laid out like clues; knowing the ending before page one; and writing the whole thing in Mark’s first‑person voice to capture the heartbeat of panic and determination. To keep the energy Chris quoted his intentions to write the fast scenes slow and the slow scenes fast.  Research stories came thick and fast: train layouts studied online, but nothing beating the real Eurostar — the proximity of the seats, the echoing announcements, the distinctive smells, the quiet tension of too many strangers in too small a space. Then came the family dynamics at the heart of the story: enough emotion to care, not enough to let the brakes screech. When Chris read a passage from Chapter 12 you could feel the audience being sucked in and had us all imagining the Bad Man’s suitcase carrying the bomb!

Tina then shifted the conversation to the highs and lows of his writing life. The best bit? When he’s wildly excited about a new idea — and his editor is too. We were almost ready to book Chris for his next visit when he let us know a new idea had received the thumbs from his editor.  The hardest bit? The rejections, the setbacks, the decade it took him to get published. But Chris said he’d always wanted to be a writer, and we were all delighted he overcame the odds and that he was providing us with such an engaging and entertaining evening.

A lively Q&A followed, full of curiosity and enthusiasm, before we moved to book signings and the cheerful chaos of readers clutching their newly signed copies before disappearing off to the pub.  We thank Chris and Tina for providing us with such lively, fun and enjoyable evening.

Signed copies of Eye Spy are available in store or online HERE.