Thanks to the late Peter Tory’s encouragement, who used almost 100 of my limericks in his Diary columns in the Star and The Sunday Express in the ’80s and early ’90s, I seem to be addicted to writing limericks. Or trying to. As often as not for friends. I do think a book of them might make good stocking fillers. Unlike Edward Lear’s, the last line of my limericks is NOT a repeat of the first line and the last line also usually contains a (hopefully) funny pay off. What’s more – my limericks do usually scan! “As someone who specialises in mysteries of all kinds and at all levels, it remains something of a mystery even to me how my old friend Arnie Wilson manages to write such daft but undeniably amusing limericks. In fact they’re Dead Funny! (Regular readers of my Roy Grace thrillers will get that pun-ishing joke.)” Peter James, author of the Roy Grace thrillers