International Thriller Writers

I just joined the International Thriller Writers association to start helping to promote 'Death Force', which is out in a couple of weeks time. It looks like a great organisation, even if it is quite US dominated. When I first started publishing as a novelist when 'Insecurity' came out in 1997 I joined the Crime Writers Association. But I found it very dominated by the crime writers and their audience. They are very different, in my judgement. I never read crime books, and the leading writers in the genre I have sampled - such as Ian Rankin - seem to me to be leaden and cliched. Surely the world doesn't need yet another dysfunctional middle-aged copper with a drink problem. The thriller and crime markets are completely seperate and it doesn't make any sense to try and lump them together.