So what do I call these books?

I was having one of those media discussions we have from time to time when one of the participants, a very knowledgeable TV exec, asked, 'Why did you call it the Nic Costa series? It's not really, is it? It's about a bunch of characters.'

Ah, how perceptive. Let me try to explain. I never meant this to be a series. I wrote one book called A Season for the Dead and my editor at the time whooped about it and said, 'This would make a great series.'

So I wrote another. And in that I brought in a bunch of new characters because the idea of writing about just one person alone, book after book, frankly appalled me.

I never consciously called this the Nic Costa series, though the name seems to have stuck and we now use it here and lots of other places too. Costa is an important character, the moral fulcrum for the books. A young, slightly naive individual whose integrity and dedication remind those around him they have to get on with the job even if they'd rather bunk off.

But he's not necessarily the main protagonist. The Blue Demon is very much an ensemble affair, with Teresa Lupo, Peroni and Falcone to the fore. The Fallen Angel next year is very much Nic's book, just as The Garden of Evil was. I change things around, for fun and because I don't want to be bored (partly because I know if I am you will be bored too).

How do you put a label on this? If it was TV they could use something geographical maybe. Centro Storico. Or something to do with Italy or Rome.

For a while I did call the books the Rome series, but I was never happy with that one. Then along came the TV series and it called up images of burly men in leather skirts doing naughty things in Imperial-era stables.

So the Nic Costa series it is. It's the best I can come up with I'm afraid, and probably too late to change. These things happen when you have a long-running title. After all TV's Taggart continued to bear the name of the fictional detective long after the actor playing him had died, and Taggart had departed the scene altogether.

It's a problem. Not a big one. But if we ever do make our way to TV as a series it will have to be addressed one way or another.