A dream review.

The Dream Depository is still open. So if you have any dreams to add, please do. And thanks to everyone who has left dreams so far.

I've had some fascinating correspondence with the American writer and writing professor, Louis Gallo, who has interesting ideas about dreams and writing. He's recommended a method for inducing dreams, which I will reveal soon. All I can say now is that it involves bananas. He's also sent me a couple of his amazing short stories, in which dreams feaature.

In the meantime, Crime Fiction Reader drew my attention to Norman Price's review of A Vengeful Longing which has appeared on Euro Crime.

This is an excellent, very enjoyable, historical crime mystery which captures both the feel and atmosphere of 19th century Russia as a decaying Kafka-esque empire waiting for a revolution.

For those of you wondering whether you should read Crime and Punishment before either A Gentle Axe or A Vengeful Longing, this is what Norm has to say:

I, like probably many readers of modern crime fiction, have never read Dostoevsky, but I am sure the Roger Morris series will encourage many to try the Russian classic CRIME AND PUNISHMENT as a result of enjoying these reincarnations of Porfiry Petrovich.

The (writers') Dream Depository.

In my dream I had been called into the offices of my publisher, Faber and Faber, to have a meeting with my editor, Walter Donohue. Walter began the meeting by saying, “This isn’t about your book. I have something to tell you. You don’t know it but you have secretly been recruited into the police ...” He showed me my badge and all the paperwork that went with it. He revealed that he had been working for the police himself for a long time. Indeed, his true role was as a recruiting sergeant--his work as a crime-fiction editor at Faber was really a front, a means of discovering writers who had potential to become detectives in the service of the police. It was then that I noticed he was wearing a jacket with the word “Policeman” on it. I was given a similar jacket to wear. I was also given the folder for my first case and told to get on it. It is perhaps significant that my new occupation was presented to me as a fait accompli--I was not given a choice in the matter.

I was now a policeman.

My dreaming self then telephoned my cousin, who is in real life a police inspector in Manchester, to tell him that I had joined the force. He was incredulous. Wounded by his incredulity, I woke.

Please leave your dreams as a comment.