Broken Homes - North American Release

WHAT?
My latest novel BROKEN HOMES will be released in North America.

WHEN?
Febuary 4th 2014 

WHY?
Because soon the whole northern continent will be under my sway! Bwahahahaha!

Hungarian Cover

The Folly: Motivational Posters

Ein Wispern unter Baker Street Wins Award

Ein Wispern unter Baker Street has won second place in the fantasy catagory of the Leserpreis - Die Besten Bucher 2013.

I'd like to thank all the people who voted for the book and more importantly handed over their hard earned cash for a copy in the first place.

Rivers of London Rap

You see my nephew Mikis is a composer and musician of some note(1) and he works with Doc Brown on their hugely successful 4 O'Clock Club for the BBC. Anyway Doc Brown read Rivers of London and asked if we could meet up. So we three sat down for a big lunch, very nice, and we decided that a Rivers of London rap would be a fine thing to have. You can listen to the result here.

Music and lyrics by Doc Brown and Mikis Michaelides.


(1) he's got shiney metal coloured disks on his wall and everything - I've seen em.

Coming Soon: Broken Homes auf Deutsch

Der böse Ort
Magische Architektur in Südlondon

Seltsame Dinge geschehen im Skygarden Tower, einem berüchtigten Sozialwohnblock in Südlondon. Dinge, die eine magische Anziehungskraft auf Police Constable und Zauberlehrling Peter Grant ausüben. Zunächst geht es nur um ein gestohlenes altes Buch über Magie, das aus der Weißen Bibliothek zu Weimar stammt. Doch dann weitet sich der Fall rasant aus. Denn der Erbauer des Tower, Erik Stromberg, ein brillanter, wenngleich leicht gestörter Architekt, hatte sich einst in seiner Zeit am Bauhaus offenbar nicht nur mit modernem Design, sondern auch mit Magie befasst. Was erklären könnte, warum der Skygarden Tower einen unablässigen Strom von begabten Künstlern, Politikern, Drogendealern, Serienmördern und Irren hervorgebracht hat. Und warum der unheimliche gesichtslose Magier, den Peter noch in schlechtester Erinnerung hat, ein so eingehendes Interesse daran an den Tag legt …

Details here.

PC Grant: Now In A Box

Worried about what to buy your loved ones for Christmas? 

Are they short of reading material perhaps? 

Tired of the same old literary fiction? 

Want to give genre a go?

Then look no further than the PC Grant boxset - containing not one, not two but three whole volumes of crunchy PC Grant goodness. Not only is each novel a police procedural but it also contains 90% of your recomended daily dose(1) of Fantasy.

Available November the 21st in all good book shops and some bad ones as well.


 (1) The World Health Organisation's recomended minimum daily fantasy intake for adults is 300 milligandalfs (48.7 microdresdens). Chidren under the age of 14 may well require twice the adult dose to maintain a balanced childhood.

They Got To Pay Their Way Like Everybody Else!

Japanese Release Day!

Whispers Under Ground Released in Japanese

At least I think it's today, not being able to read Japanese it can be hard for me to tell.

Space, Time, Machine and Monster

When?/Pan?
Saturday 19 October 2013
3.00 - 4.00 pm

Where?/Man?
The Riverfront Theatre and Arts Centre
In Newport the beating cosmopolitan heart of 21st Century Wales.
NP20 1HG

What?/Pa?
Making Sure You Know Which Story You’re Telling
Yes I shall be imparting this crucial piece of writing wisdom, plus rambling anecdotes and answering questions on whatever it is people want to ask questions about.

Tickets: £5.00

Details are here.

Locations, Locations, Locations; Whispers Under Ground

 Whispers Under Ground

Everytime I do one of these maps I find myself having to revise it as I remember new locations. Still here is the current Whispers Under Ground map. The map for Broken Homes will be posted to coincide with the US publication of same - along with a useful glossery for those that don't speak English proper.

View Whispers Under Ground in a larger map

Currently Reading: The Hairdresser of Harare

The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu

Vimbai is the star hairdresser of her salon, the smartest in Harare, Zimbabwe, until the enigmatic Dumisani appears. Losing many of her best customers to this good-looking, smooth-talking young man, Vimbai fears for her job, vital if she’s to provide for her young child. But in a remarkable reversal the two becomes allies, Dumi renting a room from Vimbai, then inviting her to a family wedding, where to her surprise, he introduces her to his rich parents as his ‘girlfriend’. Soon they are running their own Harare salon, attracting the wealthiest and most powerful clients in the city. But disaster is near, as Vimbai soon uncovers Dumi’s secret, a discovery that will result in brutality and tragedy, testing their relationship to the very limit.

The Hairdresser of Harare is a stylish, funny and sophisticated first-hand account of life today in Zimbabwe’s capital city, confounding stereotypes and challenging injustice with equal fearlessness. This is an upbeat, charming, but at times heart-breaking, story of friendship, prejudice and forgiveness from the heart of contemporary Africa.

I've almost finished this one and I heartily recomended it.

Like Goldy or Bronzey...

My mother was a woman of fiercely expressed opinions - that the state should seize the commanding heights of the economy, that the Hungarians had it coming in 1956 and that she didn't know the meaning of the word sarcasm. The problem with the last one was that we, as her family, were never sure she wasn't lying when she said it. Certainly she often said things that sounded suspiciously sarcastic - 'I love it when everyone argues around the table' for example - but she continued to deny, until her dying day, that she even knew the meaning of the word. 

I found myself in a similar quandary when reading the excellent and hilarious Dairy of a Fleet Street Fox. In one chapter the Fleet Street Fox (in character) goes into an extended diatribe about how, in modern society, nobody, not politicians or members of the public, will take responsibility for their actions. There is at least a page and a half (it's hard to tell with a kindle) of this with named examples and how this trend to 'twatishness' is growing worse. 

Then, practically one page later, she does an equally long diatribe about how if journalists are racist, misogynistic, misanthropes it's not their fault because these traits are forced on them by repeated exposure to the venality and stupidity of the public. Now if the irony of this juxtaposition is lost on you then I commend for the Order of the Baldrick and suggest you probably read something else. 

My problem is I can't tell whether the Fleet Street Fox is being ironic or not or whether she totally wrote the passages without being aware of the hypocrisy that underlies them. Now I think she's being ironic but like with my mum I suspect I'm never going to know for sure.

Where did you get the idea for Peter Grant from....

I was just asked this question again and I thought, haven't I already answered that - so to make it easy to find all the bits I've consolidated all the links.

Start at the top and work your way down...

 

 

  

Currently Reading

Fallen Heroes by Barry Nugent

A computer disk no one can read but everyone wants. An orphan whose visions of death and destruction hold the key to his past and future. A pair of master thieves hunted for a crime they did not commit. An investigator of the unknown, a stalker of demons. A government agent whose murder investigation will bring him face to face with a tragic mistake from his past. 

All connected, all unwitting pawns in a plan set in motion over nine centuries before their birth. Pursued across the globe by enemies both human and supernatural they must overcome their mistrust of each other and uncover the truth before it destroys them and unleashes a malevolent and ancient evil upon an unsuspecting world.