Join the Save Yaotl Campaign!

"Tribute of Death", the fourth Aztec Mystery featuring Yaotl, is also likely to be the last.

From a quick glance at the Reviews page on this site, it will be obvious that some people who know what they're talking about have enjoyed the resourceful slave's adventures.  Whether they appreciate the "amazingly detailed re-creation of Aztec life", the "tight plotting", the "fascinatingly complex and unusual" hero or the "black humour" that pervades the books, the critics have found plenty to like - as did the Crime Writer's Association, when it gave the annual Debut Dagger Award to "Demon of the Air".

To everyone who has written about, bought, borrowed or stolen but in any case enjoyed my stories - thank you!

Unfortunately, there aren't enough of you.

The sad fact is that the books just haven't sold very well, at least in the English-speaking world (the Spanish editions have done much better, but that's another story). This is why I've had to publish "Tribute of Death" myself as a print-on-demand title, even though I think it's the best of the lot - no publisher wants to pick up a series part-way through when the previous titles have performed so poorly.

Why this should be, I don't know. Any publisher will tell  you that there is no way of knowing why some books sell and others don't. But there it is. And it leaves me with a problem.

I want to know what happens next!

In general terms, of course, I do know: in a couple of years' time, Cortes and his followers will arrive, and Yaotl's city and his way of life will perish, reduced to rubble and ashes, as his people fight to the death rather than submit to the invader. My original plan was to show this tragedy unfolding through the unique worm's eye view of an ordinary man caught up in the middle of it. However, the only way I can know the details of Yaotl's escapades is by writing about them.

The novels are wonderful to write, but they are time-consuming, particularly since I try very hard to get the historical details right (as my readers expect). Since I have to eat, I can't start the next book in the series unless it earns me some money - even if it isn't very much.

I'd very much like to write the next book (which will be titled The Flaying of Men). If you'd like to read it, though, I'm going to need your help.

Here's what you can do:

• Buy my books (well, you were expecting that!)

• Borrow my books from your library - and if the library doesn't have one, request it!

• Encourage your friends to read my books

• Write about my books in your blogs, newsgroups and discussion lists

• Get your reading groups to discuss my books

• If you know any publishers, booksellers or anyone else who may have a commercial interest in what I've done, tell them about it!

• Give this website address out to anyone who may be interested.

Of course this is a shameless effort at self-promotion... but if Yaotl is to live on and feature in more novels - and especially if he is to travel, as I hope he will, to the exotic lands of the Mayans and beyond, and eventually come face-to-face with the strange, pale-skinned creatures who are destined to turn his world upside down - then both and he and I need all the help we can get!

For now, thank you very much - or as Yaotl might have put it, Tlazocamati huel miac!