Like most writers I am also an avid reader. The latest offerings by my favorite authors were always top of my Christmas wants list and over the years I accumulated a vast number of books. Then my wife gave me my first electronic reader and I was in paradise. So many books available at such reasonable prices, I was spoiled for choice. I couldn’t possibly read them all so how to decide which ones to download?

Naturally I went for those in my favorite genres first but that did not help much so it was a matter of looking at titles and then at the reviews each had gotten and choosing the most popular.

That was a huge help. I bought a lot of ebooks, read them all and enjoyed most of them long before I put any of my own work out there. That was a while ago now and it taught me a lesson. I was trying to sell my books and was desperate for reviews because feedback from the reading public is not only the best way an author has of seeing what he is doing right…or wrong, good reviews are also a way of attracting the browsing reader.

The thing is reviews were slow in coming. Books were being sold but few readers left feedback and this made me realize how selfish I’d been. I’d downloaded all these books and enjoyed reading them but I was very negligent when it came to leaving reviews. I’ve changed that now. I figure if an author can spend months working on a book that gives me pleasure then the least I can do is spend five minutes leaving a review of his or her work. It helps the writer and may encourage them to persevere and write more.

I’m sure you can all see where this is leading now. It’s an unabashed request that those of you who have been driven by curiosity to download and read one of my books leave me a short review; By doing so you will earn my gratitude and will encourage me to get on with “Innocent?” and the other projects that are buzzing around in my head.

Thank you and, just to whet your appetite here is a little more fiction:

The Jade Princess

 My Granddad told me his father was a simple man. Not stupid by any means but sometimes he just did not think ahead. He was also acquisitive. No, not inquisitive - acquisitive. In other words he took things. Nothing big, nothing very valuable you understand, just bits of cash or something that would fetch a few bob in the pawn shop. Usually it was barely enough to buy him a pie and a jug of ale. Except once that is. Just once he hit the big time, in fact he hit it so big it was massive and it left us with our one and only family heirloom.

            From what I can gather Great-Granddad did not rely on his light fingers to earn his living, he actually owned a horse and cart that he used to deliver and transport things. He drove it himself and made enough out of it to keep a roof over the heads of Great Grandma and six kids. Anyway, early in the last century by some mischance he got a job transporting large items from various railway stations to one of the big hotels in the west end. Now you can see the situation, a petty thief with access to the service elevator and all the floors in a very posh hotel? Great-Granddad just had to try his luck and open a few doors occasionally.

            I don’t know whether he managed to steal anything on his previous visits to the place. Perhaps his big hit was a one off but from what I have been told on that particular day he was delivering luggage and helping to carry it up to what we would now call the penthouse suite. Anyway, somehow he was left alone for a while and as was his wont he tried a few door handles. One opened and he found himself in the most luxurious room he had ever seen. Not being one to hang about Great-Granddad naturally looked around for anything that looked as if it might bring a few quid and which was small enough to hide under in his jacket.

            He did not have to look far, in a glass cabinet against the wall was a single item, a small green statuette. He grabbed it and realised immediately that it was the delicately carved figure of a girl. Even he was impressed by its intricacy and not wishing to break it he grabbed a small carved box, emptied the cigarettes it contained into his pocket and then put the figure inside before hiding the box under his coat. Within five minutes he was out of the hotel, sitting on his cart and going home.

            At that time Great-Granddad had seen the inside of more than one London police station and he had learned from his mistakes. Instead of heading for the nearest pawnshop he stopped off on the way home and hid the box and its contents somewhere. He knew that the police would trace him and that they would check his known fences and he was right. What he did not anticipate was the furore his little escapade created.

            Usually if he was suspected of something the local copper would call and take him down to the station. This time they sent a covered police van with an inspector, a sergeant and six burly policemen. Great-Granddad was bodily thrown into the back of the van where a couple of coppers tried to persuade him to talk whilst the rest tore his little terraced house apart. They emptied every drawer and cupboard, ripped up floorboards, dug up the garden and even looked down the privy. Great-Granddad was beaten until he looked like he had been trampled by his horse and he could not think straight but he did not confess. One look at what was happening had persuaded him that if they once pinned this on him he would go away for a very long time indeed and, whilst he had already done various short stints behind bars, the thought of years at hard labour terrified him more than the beating did.

            They kept him for a week. During that time they beat him, cajoled him, promised him they would not prosecute and in the end tried to bribe him. He was a stubborn old cuss though, and he would not give them the satisfaction of admitting what he had done so eventually they had to let him go. During his interrogations he had picked up a little of what it was that he had started but it was not until he got home that he realised the full extent of his crime.

            It turned out that the green figure was a thirteenth century Japanese carving known as the Jade Princess. It belonged to the Emperor of Japan, was apparently priceless and had been brought to England by a Japanese Prince for exhibition in the British Museum. It’s loss had caused a major diplomatic incident and had made headlines in every newspaper across Europe. The figure was unique though and was instantly recognisable so  the police were promising that the moment the thief tried to dispose of it they would have him.

            Now, as I said at the start of this, Great-Granddad was a simple soul but he was not stupid. Whether he retrieved the cigarette box and its precious contents and then hid them again I don’t know but from that day on he denied all knowledge of the theft no matter who asked him. He realised that he could not sell the figure, his usual sources would not touch it and he had no way of contacting those who might have been tempted to buy it so he hung on to it.

Some time before he passed on he must have fetched the box from its hiding place because as he lay breathing his last he told his eldest son, my Granddad, the story and showed him the figure. That is how it has been ever since. The old carved box and the Jade Princess have been passed on from father to eldest son. It is never put on show but we know where it is and we can look at it whenever we want. I was given it by my Dad on the day that the doctor told him that the thirty a day he had smoked since he was twelve years old were finally going to kill him.

            He lasted just six months after that but it is a pity he did not hang on for a little while longer. Just two weeks after he died one of the Sunday magazines contained a story about the Jade Princess showing up in Japan nearly a hundred years after it was supposedly stolen in London. There were pictures with the article and the figure they showed was an exact replica of the one Great-Granddad had taken. Or rather it was the other way round. I had ours valued at Sotheby’s and they assured me that it was a late nineteenth century copy worth around a thousand pounds.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Great-Granddad, his son and grandson kept the secret for nothing. The Japanese Prince must have had the replica made and then conveniently left a door unlocked. He had proved to be a bigger thief than Great-Granddad was. I was tempted to sell the thing but I did not. I still have the Jade Princess, like I said it is the only heirloom our family has ever had and besides, I don’t need the money, not after selling the fifteenth century Imperial trinket box that Great-Granddad had used to hide his false Princess.