That's because when I ask him about writing he tells me that this is his most productive time.
"When I started out as a young journalist and I wrote my first novel, then I burned the midnight oil when I was writing. You also find you get through a lot of wine writing at that time of day too," he says.
"But going on through the night and until the early hours is not ideal so over the years I have become more disciplined.
"Now I start early in the morning and go through until about 2pm. I'm more or less done for the day then and the rest of it can be spent plotting." Dickens and Martin Amis – two of his favourite authors worked this way.
Andrew lives in London but is heading north to be one of the guests at the Courier literary luncheon, Meet The Authors, at Bertie's Banqueting Rooms, Elland, on October 22.
He is 46 and grew up in York. His first intention was to follow a career in law. He qualified as a barrister but never practised.
In 1988 he won The Spectator young writer of the year award which deflected him into a writing career and after holding staff jobs on several papers and magazines he eventually became a freelance journalist.
His first novel, Bilton, was a satire on lifestyle journalism set in the near future and this and his second, The Bobby Dazzlers, a crime novel set in contemporary York, were both published to critical acclaim and have been named among the best comic novels of recent years.
But it is perhaps for his historical thrillers featuring the gauche young railwayman turned railway policeman Jim Stringer that Andrew is now best known.
The first in the series, The Necropolis Railway, appeared in 2002, inspired, says Andrew, by Brookwood Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Britain and probably the largest in western Europe. The cemetery, 30 miles south west of London, next to the village of Brookwood, was laid out in 1854 as the London Necropolis and has been in constant use ever since.
The story tells of railwayman Jim Stringer moving to the garish and tawdry London of 1903 only to find his duties are confined to a mysterious graveyard line. The men he works alongside have formed an instant loathing for him – and his predecessor has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Can Jim work out what is going on before he too is travelling on a one-way coffin ticket aboard the Necropolis Railway?
"I suppose in a way it's a parody of going away to London for which I drew on my own experiences, moving as a northerner down south," he says.
Two years later Jim was to reappear – this time promoted and relocated – in The Blackpool Highflyer, which brought Andrew to Halifax for part of his research.
"Jim drives the train from Halifax to Blackpool and so I wanted to come to the town. I spent quite a bit of time searching through the library and arch-ive, reading back copies of the Courier. Halifax is definitely a great place for inspiring writers," he says.
"It has such wonderful history and architecture and much of it is still around. I got an old map and walked around the town trying to inhabit a Halifax long forgotten."
Andrew also received help from book shop owner Jennifer Pell, of Fred Wade, and as a result she is mentioned in the acknowledgments.
The book, an atmospheric thriller of sabotage, suspicion and steam garnered more Martin fans and three other Jim Stringer novels – The Lost Luggage Porter, Murder at Deviation Junction and Death On A Branch Line – followed. Andrew is now at work on a sixth, which will be set in Scarborough.
"I must admit I love setting the books up north, especially around the places I knew while growing up," he says. He also enjoys setting novels in bygone times.
"When I'm writing about Jim then I tend to immerse myself in novels of that century just to get the flavour and pace of the language of that time."
But Andrew, married with two children, also enjoys contemporary writing – he still works as a freelance journalist, writing regularly for newspapers – and his latest book could not be further removed from Jim Stringer's Edwardian adventures.
"It's a book about ironing, duty and all kinds of housework called How To Get Things Really Flat," he says, adding that: "Yes, I probably do more housework than the average man – just because I am in the house. Ironing though I especially enjoy. It's very therapeutic."
He is hoping the book will be a hit for the Christmas market. And then, just to please Jim Stringer fans, he is considering more railway adventures.
"I'm pretty sure he'll be back – that's if people want to hear more about him," he says.