Book Spotlight and Excerpt: The Alcoholic Mercenary by Phil Hughes

 

They said, “See Naples and then die!”

Rachel had thought it was to do with the natural beauty of the place. A misconception she soon lost after climbing down from the C130 troop carrier. The suspicious death of her predecessor, followed by the murder of a sailor, and an enforced liaison with a chauvinistic and probably corrupt cop saw to that.

“See Naples and then die!”

Some said the saying was anonymous. Some attributed it to Goethe. Still, others said it was Lord Byron, or maybe Keats. When the young brother of a mercenary hitman became her main suspect, Rachel leaned towards Keats. Didn’t the poet die here? Somewhere near, for sure. Probably coined the phrase on his deathbed.

And then, the cherry on the top of her ice cream soda, she could smell grappa on the breath of the mercenary when she interviewed him. The only thing worse than a violent man: a violent man who drinks.

The only thing worse than a violent man who drinks: a violent man who drinks and considers himself Rachel’s enemy.

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 EXCERPT

Capri, Italy

The thrill of the sea spray, the wind, the bouncing and jostling of the Zodiac always excited Beni. He could think of nothing he would prefer at three in the morning. Not so his navigator, Stefano, wobbling in the front, armed with the compass, who kept waving and shouting directions when the boat veered, pushed off course by an unforgiving sea. Beni could imagine Stefano’s free hand gripping the rope so tightly his knucklebones would be shining in the moonlight.

When they reached the open sea, and the shadow of the Sorrento coast hid Capri, the waves tried to knock Stefano out of the boat. Beni screamed at the thrill, and Stefano screamed at him to slow down. Tough on Stefano, though, because Beni had the wheel. And what a wheel. What speed. Someone told him how many knots the Zodiac could do. With no idea what knots were, he still knew that if he pulled the throttle back to the stop, he would be doing more than thirty klicks an hour, which, at sea, was a fantastic and scary feeling.

Stefano started to wave his red dimmed torch, just visible in the predawn black, when a beam of light lanced from a point at sea where no land could be. Beni eased back on the throttle and grinned. The freighter. As soon as they had slowed enough to be gently rocking in the waves, he lifted his halogen torch and flashed a response. It was a game. Scortese had told him the Guardia could do nothing. They were outside Italian waters. The threat would be when they were returning.

Beni didn’t think there was much threat, even then. This was his fourth trip, and he’d seen nothing of the sbirri or the Guardia. It was as if they didn’t care. They had billions of lire’s worth of hi-tech boats resting idly in the port of Miseno. Sure, he’d listened to those engines booming across the bay. Anyone who lived around Baia had heard them. They shook buildings and made teeth rattle. Beni had never seen an interceptor, but he’d felt one often enough.

It didn’t take long to load the crates into the Zodiac. The men hanging out of a loading door in the ship’s hull held their peace. Beni knew they only spoke Russian and supposed they didn’t care if the AKs went to the correct buyer because they’d get their money either way. Ten minutes and he was again feeling the thrill of pure power. The boat’s bow lifted out of the waves like some monstrous creature from the deep, one of the spooky black and white ones from the American films he’d snuck in to see.

They’d made it into the gap between Capri and the coast when Stefano once more started to wave his torch frantically like he was trying to swat some elusive mosquito. Beni eased off the throttle and let the Zodiac come to a rest, swaying gently in the wash, the outboard quietly chugging and spitting sea spray.

‘What’s up?’

‘Can’t you hear it?’ Stefano asked, stress evident in his tone. Beni could imagine his frown, invisible in the red glow, mouth and eyes nothing but black.

Cupping his ear, he listened. Finally, he could hear a muted roar over the chugging of their engine.

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘That’s the Guardia interceptor. They’re coming for us.’

‘How do they know we’re here?’

‘I dunno. Radar, maybe,’ Stefano replied.

‘What are we going to do?’ Beni asked.

‘We’ll have to run for it. Hope they miss us.’

‘Are they likely to?’

‘No idea. Only one way to find out.’ Stefano’s tone was a sure indication of what he thought their chances might be. Beni knew if the light had been enough, he would see Stefano’s face etched with panic lines.

‘So, let’s find out then,’ he said.

They found out quickly.

As they raced out from their cover, someone flicked a switch, and the interceptor glared at them with a halogen beam, which made daylight appear wherever it touched. Tall explosions of water in front of the Zodiac were accompanied by the dub-dub-dub of heavy machine gunfire and a mechanical voice ordering them to heave to. They couldn’t argue with the twin guns mounted to the front of the boat, which would tear the Zodiac into plastic strips while churning Stefano and Beni into shark bait. Beni turned the engine off and waited calmly.

He had nothing to fear.

Before long, a Zodiac like theirs appeared in the light thrown by the interceptor. It was smaller, and Beni guessed it had been launched off the other vessel. There were Guardia in it, pointing guns at them.

‘Get your hands up.’

He could see Stefano shaking. Neither of them had been arrested before, but Beni knew he would not spend more than a single night in custody because Beni made sure to give his tame sbirro the odd scrap of information. His insurance policy. He never told the cop anything of importance, just gossip, but the man was about as bright as a beachball and took it all as though it was Christmas.

Less than ten minutes later, they were pulling themselves up the boarding ladder into the Guardia’s boat. The boat impressed Beni. He couldn’t ignore the beauty of its hard lines and massive engines, throbbing right into his guts, making his teeth ache. Jumping onto the deck, he found a man standing there wearing chinos and a summer jacket. The man had his arms crossed and was grinning.

‘Where’s your uniform?’ Beni asked before he could stop himself.

‘Not Guardia. I’m a detective. Serious Crimes in Pozzuoli. Just observing here.’

‘What? Like watching the boat crew? That’s a bit creepy, isn’t it?’

‘What’s your name, guaglio?’ the man asked, his accent causing Beni to frown. Most cops he dealt with were not from around Napoli. In fact, they tended to be from north of Rome – way north of Rome.

‘You a local?’

‘Baia born and bred. Why’d you ask?’

‘No reason. Curiosity.’

‘So, what’s your name, kid?’

‘Beni Di Cuma.’

The cop smiled and nodded, making like he was on Beni’s side. The idiot thought Beni would be swayed by his false friendship because they were paisan. He didn’t need any buddies in the cops. He had his sbirro in Pozzuoli, who worked for the Secret Service. His wannabe handler. The one who would have the power to keep him out of La Casa. Beni would be eating lunch in Pescatore’s come midday.

‘This’ll warm you up,’ the sbirro offered his hipflask. Beni took a swig before handing it to Stefano.

‘Who’d you work for, Beni? My guess is the Scortese crew.’

Beni shrugged and turned to look at the silhouette of Capri, quickly receding as they headed into port. He thought the cop knew well enough. He thought they all knew. Did they not talk to each other? He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. All the different types of cops Naples had, and they all thought they were better than the others. The Gatti Neri, the Guardia, the sbirri, all thought the others should bow to them. Never mind the Secret Service, who – chosen by God himself – bowed to no one.

 Phil Hughes

Although educated in Classical Studies, Phil is the author of several historical crime novels. Having spent many years living in the Mafia-infested hinterlands of Naples, Phil bases his novels on his experiences while living there. Much of what he includes in his stories is based on real events witnessed first-hand.

Having retired from writing and editing technical documentation for a living, Phil now lives in Wexford with his partner and their border terriers, Ruby, Maisy, and the new addition Ted. He writes full-time and where better to do it than in the Sunny South East of Ireland.

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Audiobook Spotlight: Scribbler Tales Volume Four by Mary Ann Bernal, narrated by Roberto Scarlato

 

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When the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur is kidnapped, Agent Richards races against time to find her in Abducted.

In Cunning, newlywed Charlotte von Lichtner is obsessed with Transylvanian folklore when she encounters her husband’s mysterious kinsman.

Enamored finds Lady Margaret besotted with a younger man whose intentions are suspect in their unorthodox relationship.

Will the murderer succeed as he flees the crime scene in Reckless?

Doctor/patient confidentiality is sorely tested when Sarah reveals the truth about her lover’s death in Safeguard.

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Audiobook Spotlight: Scribbler Tales Volume Three by Mary Ann Bernal, narrated by Roberto Scarlato

 

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When a highly classified schematic of a prototype engine is stolen, the evidence points to an inside job in Hidden Lies.

In Nightmare, Melanie’s childhood demons carry over into adulthood when she returns to her ancestral home.

Detective Newport races against time to apprehend a killer targeting prosecuting attorneys in Payback.

The Night Stalker is not a figment of Pamela’s imagination as she tries to convince the police that her life is in danger.

While trying to identify a serial arsonist, a Fire Marshall suspects a highly decorated firefighter in Turning Point.

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Interview with Josephine Greenland, author of Embers

 

Two siblings, one crime. One long-buried secret. 

17-year-old Ellen never wanted a holiday. What is there to do in a mining town in the northernmost corner of the country, with no one but her brother Simon – a boy with Asperger’s and obsessed with detective stories – for company? 

Nothing, until they stumble upon a horrifying crime scene that brings them into a generations-long conflict between the townspeople and the native Sami. When the police dismiss Simon’s findings, he decides to track down the perpetrator himself. Ellen reluctantly helps, drawn in by a link between the crime and the siblings’ own past. What started off as a tedious holiday soon escalates into a dangerous journey through hatred, lies and self-discovery that makes Ellen question not only the relationship to her parents, but also her own identity.

Author Interview

Josephine Greenland

Please tell us a little about yourself.

I am Swedish-British writer born and raised in a small town west of Stockholm called Eskilstuna. I moved to the UK for university, studying English at the University of Exeter and then an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. After this, I went to Thailand to teach English as a foreign language and lived there for six months, and then to Austria to teach at a summer camp. I currently live in Edinburgh where I got my teacher qualification in Secondary English and am reaching the end of my probationary year here. Have currently no idea where I will be whisked off to after that! I am a globe trotter and love living in different countries, so hope to be able to do this once things settle down a bit and travel possibilities return. I also play music (violin and piano) and love hiking with my family.

When did you start writing?

I started writing at about age nine. I wrote one short story and then one novel about horses, before delving into fantasy and beginning a high fantasy novel which I worked on back and forth for seven years (!), from 12-19. I didn’t start writing seriously in English, though, with the aim to get published, until I started university.

What projects have been published?

I was a finalist in the Literary Taxidermy 2020 competition by Regulus Press, winner of the Bumble Bee Flash 2019 Competition by Pulp Literature, Runner-up in the Summer Solstice 2018 Competition by Hard Time Moon and winner of the Fantastic Female Fables Competition 2017 by Fantastic Books Publishing (those stories were all then published in the anthologies). Other journals and online magazines that feature my work include: Toasted Cheese, Aloka Magazine, The Conceptualist, AHF Magazine, Litro, Plum Tree Tavern, Porridge Magazine, Literary Yard, Soft Cartel Mag, and Dream Catcher.

Tell us about Embers

Embers is a YA Mystery and crime novel set in the fictional mining town of Svartjokk in northern Sweden. It tells the story of 17-year-old Ellen Blind, who travels to Svartjokk with her brother Simon, a 14-year-old with Aspergers. They’re on a holiday arranged by their parents, who claim that the siblings should bond, visit the birthplace of their late grandfather, Lars-Erik, and discover their Sami roots. Ellen, though, knows that her parents also want them out of the way so they can sort out their marital problems. The holiday turns upside down when the siblings discover reindeer heads in the forest. Simon’s findings at the scene suggest the reindeer have been poisoned, and he suspects people in the town. Frustrated with the police’s lack of interest, he is determined to solve the case himself. The siblings’ investigation takes them to the local Sami village and the owner of the dead reindeer, Per-Anders Thomasson. It turns out that Per-Anders knows far more about Lars-Erik’s past than the siblings did. The more they learn, the more Ellen suspects that the reindeer killing is somehow connected to their grandfather and the reason he left his home-town and the Sami community behind. As Ellen and Simon are to discover, embers of the past rarely burn out.

How did you select the title of your novel?

It came to me when I started the third draft during my MA (the opening of the novel was my dissertation project). I realized that the key concept/motif in my novel was that no matter how hard we try to repress the secrets of our past, they will always come back to haunt us unless we confront them and acknowledge them in the open. Like embers, glowing in the background in the hearth, hard to spot at first, but still there nevertheless.

What was your inspiration?

My travels with my brother to northern Sweden. Some of the activities we did are all featured in the book, the mining town we stayed in became Svartjokk in my novel, and the relationship between siblings Ellen and Simon is also loosely based on us. The crime in the novel is based on a true crime that happened not far from the town where we stayed: two teenaged girls discovered reindeer bodies laid out in a circle in the forest, but the perpetrator was never found. I felt compelled to write a book in which the guilty party was found.

What are you currently working on?

I am currently finishing the third draft of my second novel, a literary thriller for adults. Like Embers, it is set in Sweden, but closer to home, describing the hunting community and small-town life close to where I grew up, and the secrets and conspiracies that can take place within a family. It is also loosely based on a real incident that happened in the area, about wolf hybrids roaming the countryside and passing through towns, which had to be tracked down and shot.

What are you reading at the moment?

Comeback by Chris Limb, a fellow Unbound author.

What do you like to do in your free time when you're not reading or writing?

Hiking and travelling. I think it’s very important to broaden your horizons and learn about different cultures – especially for writers! I also enjoy playing in orchestras and dancing.

Do you have any advice for other authors?

It is never too early to share your work with other writers/readers. Perfection does not exist and striving for it before you’re willing to share your story can kill the heart of the work. Throw yourself into whatever opportunities come your way, and actively seek out opportunities, in equal amounts.

And finally, can you tell us some fun facts about yourself, such as crossed skydiving off my bucket list.

I play five instruments (or used to, when I wasn’t writing as much). I have a black cat who often watches me write when I’m at home. I’ve done bamboo rafting in Thailand which was probably the hardest and scariest balancing act I’ve ever pulled off!

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Josephine Greenland

Josephine is a Swedish-British writer from Sweden, currently working as an English teacher in Edinburgh. She has a BA in English from the University of Exeter, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Birmingham. She started writing novels at the age of nine but only began writing seriously in English while at university, for her first creative writing course (2015). Since then, she’s had 14 short stories published, won two competitions, and been shortlisted twice. Embers is her first novel, inspired by her travels in northern Sweden with her brother, and was her dissertation project for her MA. When not writing, she enjoys playing music, jogging, hiking, and discussing literature with her cat. 

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The Inspiration behind Three Monkeys by Len Maynard

 

Writing the DCI Jack Callum Mysteries

The inspiration behind the series.

 Len Maynard

 

 
1) Three Monkeys
 
‘The Last Train to San Fernando barrelled down the stairs carried on Johnny Duncan’s nasal whine. Jack Callum sighed, laid down his newspaper, and went out into the hall.’
 
Those were the first lines of a Jack Callum novel ever to find their way onto my computer in the summer of 2010.
 
Not a particularly gripping start to a crime novel I’ll grant you, but for me, they were vitally significant because those twenty-six words had fixed so much in my head.
 
Firstly, period. I was now viewing Britain in the late 1950’s. Secondly, I knew that music, especially skiffle and early British rock n’ roll would be playing a large part in the coming narrative. I wasn’t aware then that Jack’s son, Eric, would buy a guitar and form his own skiffle band, or that his sister would be roped in to sing for them. That would become a voyage of discovery, as would the whole dynamics of Jack’s family.
 
At that moment all I was really concerned with was the crime Jack would be called on to solve.
 
I was building a character who had no apparent flaws, who had a settled home life, a loving, devoted wife and not much to disturb his uneventful and possibly slightly dull life. I was entering dangerous territory if I wanted to write an edgy crime novel and not a cosy drawing room mystery.
 
One thing I was certain of was that the crime had to be extreme and deeply disturbing. It had to shake Jack, and the reader, out of their comfort zone.
 
If you’ve read Three Monkeys you will be the judge as to whether I succeeded.

To further complicate Jack’s life I had the return of his and Annie’s estranged daughter Joanie ready to splinter their cosy world.
 
Joan Callum arrived in my mind in the early hours of a Sunday morning. She arrived fully formed, feisty and remorseful, and an absolute delight to write.
 
I had already fallen slightly in love with Annie. She was the wife I’d always wanted. Level-headed, attractive, and able to hold her own when dealing with Jack’s dogged nature. But suddenly Joanie arrived and I was instantly smitten. Here was a young woman who had made her own decisions (not always the most sensible ones) at a very early age and was wasting no time in forging forward with her life.
 
I was starting to engage with the entire Callum family. Eric was starting to resemble a fourteen version of me, with his love of music and his desire to play guitar. Rosie was still very much an innocent teenager. Little did I know then what lay in store for her in the months ahead.
 
Three Monkeys was written pretty much on the fly. I’ve never been much for planning my novels. When I have done this in the past the results have never been satisfactory. I like to discover what will happen in the novel the way a reader would.
 
However, once I decided there would be more than just one Jack Callum book, I had to break with tradition and started making notes about the characters and the villains…but not the plot. That evolved pretty much as it appears in the book. And it was a system I used throughout the entire series. I hope it’s worked, but you’d be in a much better position to judge than me.
  
2) A Dangerous Life
 
My fascination for the dark underbelly of the entertainment business has been evident since I first started writing back in the 1970’s.
 
At a funfair, I was always more interested by what was happening behind the flashing lights than the rides and sideshows. At the theatre, I always wanted to know what was happening behind the proscenium arch once the curtain fell.
 
The character of Tony Turner had a certain appeal for me – a famous and popular actor whose career was on the slide. It was someone whose life I wanted to explore, to dig down and uncover the secrets he had kept hidden behind the showbiz smile. The fact that he was also my first murder victim gave Jack a good reason to conduct that exploration on my behalf.
 
A Dangerous Life also took me away from the middle-class monster of Three Monkeys and allowed me to write about British gangland of the 1950’s, a world I only knew about from watching the black and white B movies at my local cinema.
 
Growing up, the names of two Edgars – Lustgarten and Wallace – had been my passport to a monochrome world of murder, thievery, blackmail, fraud, and all things criminal.
 
Once I had my background, my characters and my initial murder the rest came fairly easily.
 
I wrote the opening scene of a thirteen-year-old Gerry Turner confessing to the killing of her brother some months before starting the actual book. It was such a haunting scene that I knew I would have to use it. I was unaware when I wrote it that it would be a springboard into another novel.
 
Equally, I was unaware of how important young Gerry would become and the role she would go on to play in future Jack Callum books. But that in itself has been one of the delights in writing about the Callum world, how minor characters suddenly come into their own and take centre stage.
 
Norton Common, where Tony Turner’s tortured body was found nailed to a tree, like a lot of places depicted in the books, really exists. It’s a charming and rather lovely area of parkland barely a mile away from where I live, an ideal spot for ramblers and dog-walkers and not a place where a dead body is likely to be found. (Sidebar – a few weeks after finishing A Dangerous Life, a body was found on Norton Common, hanging from a tree. Nothing to do with me, guv. Honest.)

 
3) Appetite For Evil
 
The genesis for this story dates back to 1958, the year my father died at the age of thirty-three. I was just five years old.
 
For the few years that preceded his death he became involved with the everyday running of St Joseph’s, a local Catholic orphanage. A convert to that faith in his late twenties, his desire to help out in any way he could led to him forming a group of volunteers to help with social events, running sports days and organising film shows for the children and staff.
 
The first part of Appetite for Evil is pretty much an accurate account of my early childhood. My portrait of characters like Sister Rosalie, Cannon Flood, and especially Les Parsons are drawn from life – especially Les’s glass eye. Les, like my dad, had lost his real eye in an accident at work.
 
Beyond that, once the murders start, it’s all down to my own dark imagination.
 
The memories of the few years I was a visitor to St Joseph’s, accompanying my dad, are vividly etched on my memory, but this the first time I have used it in the fabric of a story. Writing the book was an emotional roller coaster, re-visiting memories that had been long forgotten, or so I thought.
 
Once I tapped into them, the names and faces came back in Dolby surround sound and glorious Technicolor.
 
Again, and probably because I was, for the most part, treading familiar ground, the execution of the book was relatively simple and, once I had put my emotions back in the box labelled Do Not Disturb, an enjoyable experience.
  
4) Deadly Ambitions
  
Larry Parnes was one of the most successful impresarios and entrepreneurs of the late ’Fifties, early ’Sixties.
 
I had read a great deal about him and his ‘stable’ of stars. Indeed, artistes like Joe Brown, Marty Wilde Billy Fury, and Vince Eager had provided me with the soundtrack to my early life. Pre-dating the Beatles and possessed of a glamour and star power that has really been unequalled since Larry Parnes’ stable of good-looking and talented (some more than others) young men fuelled teenage fantasies and took the record industry to new heights.
 
My elder sister was a fully paid-up member of the dream world Parnes was peddling and I absorbed it all through some kind of cultural osmosis…and by reading her weekly Valentine comic when she had finished with it.
 
So, a great deal of the research for Deadly Ambitions had been done decades before.
 
The title of the book was an accurate description of the plot.
 
Harry Franks was a would-be Larry Parnes, but a man with a fraction of Parnes’ talent or work ethic. He was a get rich quick merchant who saw the people he was managing as commodities and little else, and it was this avaricious side to his (frankly, unpleasant) nature that led to his murder.
 
Deadly Ambitions was another of the books that put the seedy side of show business under the microscope, busily lifting stones and examining the furtive, scurrying things that live beneath them.
 
Saying that, it was great fun to write and introduced one of my favourite characters.
 
Bunny Starling made such an impact on me that I was reluctant to kill her off when it was time for her to die.
 
Some of my characters are so unpleasant that I have no qualms in hastening them towards their demise – Harry Franks for one – but I was genuinely sad to say goodbye to Bunny. She enlivens the pages in which she appears and never fails to make me smile.
 
The climax of the story takes place at Farringdon Underground station. A station I know intimately after spending over forty years of my life travelling to and from there when I was working in Clerkenwell. It was inevitable that it would, one day, feature in one of my books.
 
Since finishing Deadly Ambitions I have returned to Farringdon and, in my mind’s eye, I can picture the scene exactly as I wrote it. Luckily fellow passengers on the Metropolitan line have no insight into my thoughts.
 
I think they’d be horrified.
 
 5) Sins of the Fathers
  
Sins of the Fathers was the most difficult of the Jack Callums to write and took longer than the rest of the books by several months. And this had nothing to do with subject matter or lack of inspiration. In fact, it was nothing more than real life intruding into my literary world and making itself so noticeable that I just couldn’t ignore it and carry on.

I was 20,000 words into Sins and rolling along like a turbocharged Hillman Hunter when my landlord and owner of the cottage where I’d spent the best part of the decade, returned from his sojourn abroad in need of a place to live.
 
So, effectively, I was out on my ear and needed to find somewhere else to live and write.
 
The search for rented accommodation in Letchworth at that time of year (Christmas) was long and arduous. There was little on the market that was remotely suitable and the prospect of finding a three-bedroom cottage similar to the one I was vacating was very slim indeed.
 
I finally found a two-bedroom apartment and moved in, sacrificing many of my goods and chattels, including many books and much of my music, including twelve electric guitars and basses that had once adorned my walls, and now had nowhere to call home.
 
I really had no idea how traumatic the move had been, what a shock to my system it was, until I sat down at my makeshift desk and attempted to resume Sins of the Fathers from where I had left it all those months before. And I had nothing. I had left my muse at my old house and she hadn’t accompanied me to my new home.
 
Eventually, after a lot of cajoling she returned, but somewhere along the line she had lost her magic and, not for the first time in my writing career, I was floundering.
 
I had no choice but to start from scratch. I effectively ripped up the twenty thousand words I’d written and started again with a blank screen.
 
I’ve stated elsewhere that I’m not a great or fastidious note-taker but, at that time, I was actively cursing my own ineptitude and negligence. The words were a long time coming and sometimes it was like pulling teeth.
 
Gradually I realised it was nothing whatsoever to do with a powerless muse or a lack of imaginative power. I was simply a fish out of water, floundering, and gasping for air.
 
I had written a good dozen novels at my old cottage and had become accustomed to the place, to my writing room and the creature comforts I had fastidiously built up around me. If I was going to make the new book a success, I would have to repair the damage to my psyche and rebuild my life.
 
The solution, when it came, was so simple. Stop writing.
 
So, I made the conscious decision to stop – for about six months. Six months watching DVD box sets, socialising, catching up on music that I had missed, and just enjoying myself.
 
After six months my muse returned, with her tail firmly between her legs, and I completed Sins, followed very quickly by Into the Fire that took a fraction of the time.
Now I’m back to writing and the cottage seems like a lifetime ago. Phew! It was touch and go for a moment there.
  
6) Into The Fire
  
In my head I sub-titled this, The Death of a Ring Rat because that was what it was about.
 
The reason I called it Into the Fire was simply that I didn’t think the majority of my readers would have any idea what a ring rat was.
 
I had just read a series of biographies of professional wrestlers stretching back to the late ’fifties. It's hard to believe that televised pro wrestling, in the 1950’s and 60’s had such a following, but viewing figures of over ten million were commonplace, and people like Mick McManus and Jackie Pallo were household names. This pre-dated the Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks period of wrestling which was little more than a televised pantomime, and much the worse for it.
 
And it was this golden age that I had a hankering to write about since I first started writing.
 
Writing the Jack Callum series finally gave me the opportunity.
 
Ring rats were, and still are, the derogatory term given to the women wrestling fans who follow their favourites from town to town, and sometimes, country to country, in the same way that groupies follow rock bands.
 
Once I had decided on a background on which to paint the scenario, the rest came so easily the book nearly wrote itself. In fact, the whole thing took me about six weeks from start to finish, a new record for me, and it produced the book, which is probably my favourite of the six instalments.
 
I was even bold enough to include my love of period Variety theatre as a secondary background. I was doubly blessed.
 
Also, using the scourge of drug misuse gave the novel a resonance and relevance to today’s society. Again, it’s easy to forget that back in 1960 that drug abuse was commonplace and a serious source of income for the criminal fraternity. So, the research went deep, and the more I discovered the more I wanted to write the book.
 
So, that’s it for this look behind the scenes. I’ve said before that I think of the Jack Callum series as one long novel, and Into the Fire brought the piece to a satisfying conclusion…for now.

Writing the DCI Jack Callum Mystery series has been a hell of a ride, and I’m not sure I’m ready to get off just yet.
 

1958.

A girl’s body is found in Hertfordshire.
 
Her eyes and mouth have been sewn shut. Candle wax has been poured into her ears to seal them.
 
DCI Jack Callum, policeman and dedicated family man, who cut his teeth walking the beat on the violent streets of London, before moving his family away from the city, to a safer, more restful life in the country, leads the investigation into this gruesome crime that shatters the peace of the sleepy English town.
 
Images of three monkeys are sent to the police to taunt them: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Something more sinister than a mere isolated murder seems to be going on as more victims come to light.
 
Who is doing this and why?
 
At the insistence of the first victim’s father, a local dignitary, officers from Scotland Yard are brought in to bring about a speedy conclusion to the case, side-lining Jack’s own investigation.
 
In a nail-biting climax, one of Jack’s daughters is snatched. Before she can become the next victim, Jack has to go against the orders of his superiors that have constantly hampered his investigation, and risk his own career in an attempted rescue at the killer’s own home.
 
 

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Len Maynard

Len Maynard was born in North London in 1953.

In 1978, a book of short ghost stories, written in collaboration with Michael Sims, was published by London publisher William Kimber. For the following forty years the pair wrote ten more collections of ghost stories before moving into novels in 2006, completing over thirty more books, including the successful Department 18 series of supernatural/crime crossover novels as well as several standalone novels and novellas in the supernatural and crime genres.

Always a keen reader of crime novels, and with a passion for the social history of the twentieth-century it was fairly inevitable that, when he decided to branch out and write under his own name, some kind of combination of these two interests would occur.

The six DCI Jack Callum Mysteries were the result of several years of total immersion in the world he created for Jack Callum, his family, his friends (and enemies) and his work colleagues.

He has also written a trilogy of adventure thrillers set in the Bahamas (also available from Sharpe Books).

He is currently at work on the seventh book in the DCI Jack Callum series.

Connect with Len:

Website •  Website “The DCI Jack Callum Mysteries” • Twitter • Instagram • Facebook

New Release - Mr. 100% by Lance Morcan

New York defense lawyer Madison Harley only takes on clients he believes innocent. He’s known as ‘Mr. 100%’ because he has never lost a case, and consequently he is Public Enemy No. 1 in the eyes of the NYPD, prosecution lawyers and the media. 

The bad press has taken a toll on his personal life. His wife has moved out, taking their two young sons with her and instigating divorce proceedings. When his latest client confides that he is guilty of the horrific rape-murder he’s accused of, a depressed and guilt-wracked Harley hires a contract killer to terminate him after the jury delivers a Not Guilty verdict.

It’s 1987 and groundbreaking developments in the field of forensic science sees DNA profiling used for the first time in criminal investigations in America. The release of DNA test results causes Harley to rescind his order to carry out the hit on his client. Unfortunately for him, the killer doesn’t change direction once a ‘kill’ order has been placed.

The nightmare scenario that follows sees Mr. 100% negotiating for his client’s life, his own life and the lives of his estranged family with a Mafia henchman, stalking a contract killer and acting as a minder for a client who it appears really is innocent and who is oblivious to the mayhem unfolding around him.

Throughout it all, Harley is sustained by the affections of a new woman in his life – a prosecutor with the District Attorney’s Office no less.

FREE Kindle book launch promo on Thursday, March 19, 2020, and again this weekend March 21-22, 2020

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New Zealand novelist and screenwriter Lance Morcan is a prolific author with more than 20 published fiction and non-fiction books to his credit as well as several screenplay adaptations of his work. A former journalist and newspaper editor, he regularly writes in collaboration with his son James Morcan, and their books are published by Sterling Gate Books.