Great reviews, eerie art, Christmas chillers

Apologies for my tardiness on here during the course of this autumn. I’m sorry I haven’t been posting more. The truth is that November in particular has been a phenomenally busy time, what with my promotional campaign for ROGUE, and the finishing touches I’ve been putting to my next novel (my first with Thomas & Mercer), whose title I can’t yet divulge, though as the publicity campaign for that one will be commencing soon, it won’t be too long (and the cover art is sweet, trust me).

I’ve also, as it happens, been working hard on the next book after that, my second for Thomas & Mercer, and am deep in the process of editing the next Heck epic, which is tentatively titled DEVIL’S BARGAIN, though that may change. On top of all that, I’ve got some other bits and bobs to talk about, including more Heck stuff, and a comprehensive list of MY FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES, all of which can be found below (the latter near the bottom of today’s post).

First though, how about something …

FABULOUS

I’m obviously talking about the image at the top of today’s column. It’s the work of Polish artist, Dawid Boldys, and it will adorn the cover of the Czech edition of my autumn/winter horror novella, SEASON OF MIST, or, as it translates, OBDOBI MLH. It depicts the scene in the novella when a bunch of schoolkids go up to the derelict coal mine, to collect bonfire fuel, even though they’ve been warned that there is a serial child killer on the loose. (If you want to know how that works out for them, you’ll need to grab hold of the English version; just follow the link).

If memory serves, OBDOBI MLH, is due for publication just around now, which some of my more regular readers may be confused by, given that the narrative commences in September, though in truth, SEASON OF MIST isn’t just about the autumn months. Its narrative runs deep into December, only ending quite close to Christmas. So, hopefully, brand new readers in the Czech Republic will still find it a potent tale.

In addition to this, I want to talk a little bit about ROGUE, the eighth installment in the Heck saga. It’s doing fantastically well; I’m truly delighted the way sales are going and how it’s drawn quite a bit of attention from the crime-writing community. You might be interested in the online interview I did with Sam Brownley of the UK CRIME BOOK CLUB: HERE.

If that’s not enough, since my last post, ROGUE has gathered several more great reviews from some very august persons. Check these out below (sorry, I’m being very self-indulgent and running them in their entirety, so feel free to skip down to the next item, if these are of no interest) …

Wow! Strap in & hold on tight for one Heck (sorry) of a rollercoaster ride from Paul Finch with literally everything you need & more from a cop thriller - a battered, bruised, disgraced cop out for revenge & a system out to thwart him at every turn. Truly outstanding!

Nick Oldham, author of the Henry Christie Mysteries

Grim, gritty, and gripping. Heck crashes through the pages like a bull in a China shop: relentless and unstoppable.

Antony Johnston, author of the Dog Sitter Detective series

When two masked gunmen wipe out an elite police unit in an attack on a London pub they make a deadly mistake: leaving Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg alive.

Suspended from the Met and under investigation by his former colleagues, Heck is determined to avenge his dead friends at any cost. The journey to do so takes him from London gangland, through the industrial wastelands of the North, to the wilds of Scotland. There he encounters a crime syndicate more brutal than anything even he has faced before.

There are tough maverick cops, and then there is the tungsten hard version created by Paul Finch. The difference when the gloves are off and the rule book in the bin is as wide as that between a banger and the atom bomb.

In this latest instalment, as would be expected, the action is both relentless and bruising. The climax is made all the more dramatic by being played out with one of the most dramatic landscapes in the world as a backdrop.

Finch pays close attention to the tools of the trade of violence, not just in the expected way writers in the genre note the capacities of a gun or a knife for a readership avid for detail. He is fully aware of their capacity to do harm, both to the person hit, and the one pulling the trigger. This lends an extra level of authenticity to the resulting carnage.

Finch also asks an interesting moral question in this book, in previous outings there has always been something of the time bomb about Heck. What will happen now the fail safes that have previously stopped the clock before the hands reach twelve are no longer in place? Just how thin is the line between being a maverick on the side of right, and the sort of person they are best placed to hunt?

Answering those questions potentially opens up a new chapter both for this series and its main character.

Adam Colclough, Shots Magazine

Paul Finch’s previous DS Mark Heckenburg novel, KISS OF DEATH ended on the most brutal cliff-hanger imaginable, with most of Heck’s long-term colleagues mown down in a hail of gunfire and even his long-term love-interest, DSU Gemma Piper, apparently lifeless in his arms.

That was almost six years ago - a LONG time to wait for the next instalment! - but ROGUE picks only a couple of months after the Ace of Diamonds massacre, with Heck suspended and now under investigation himself, suspected of having a role in the slaughter. Heck’s alone, but he has two things the rest of the police don’t: a clue to the killers’ true identity, and a burning desire for revenge.
Eluding police surveillance, Heck sets off on the trail of the killers, knowing he’s going down a road of no return. It leads back up North... and beyond it, into the Scottish Highlands and a riveting conclusion.

Paul Finch is a first-class storyteller, and in ROGUE he’s lost none of his touch. As you’d hope for Heck’s long-awaited return, this one has the volume dialled up to eleven, with all the unflinching eye for human cruelty, relentless pace and pulse-pounding action you’d expect from Finch - and a little bit more. After all, Heck’s hell on wheels even when he’s a police officer, but now he’s on a personal mission of revenge. I was almost afraid to find out how far he’d actually go to make the killers pay for what they’d done, and of what would be left for him afterwards.

Almost, but not quite. Paul Finch is far too good a storyteller for that.

Five stars, and I can’t wait for the next Heck book. I understand the delays that held further instalments of the series up are now resolved, and so here’s hoping there's a new one very soon.

Daniel Church, author of The Hollows and The Ravening

When Kiss Of Death was published in 2018, I doubt Paul Finch expected his readers to have to wait six years to see how he resolved the astounding cliff-hanger DS Heckenburg faced at the conclusion of that novel. But it seems not even best-selling authors are immune to the vagaries of the publishing industry. Still, better late than never, Rogue has arrived and once more chaos reigns as the one man wrecking ball known as Heck is let loose on the unsuspecting criminal community.

DS Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg works for the Serial Crimes Unit, a specialist department of the National Crime Agency whose remit is to investigate cases of serial murder and Rogue is the eighth in the series. Heck has had a complicated relationship with the head of the unit, DSU Gemma Piper. The two were in love but chose the job over their relationship and so he has been reconsidering his position in the SCU.

Their last case was an investigation into a multinational crime syndicate led by the Armenian oligarch Milena Misanyan. While celebrating after closing the case, 26 officers were gunned down in the Ace of Diamonds pub in Barnet, London. Two masked men decimated the unit.

Because he was picking up his colleague DC Gail Honeyford on the way, Heck arrived late and gave chase as the killers left the scene. Heck was able to injure one of the men in a fight before they escaped. Shot in the initial gunfight, Gemma Piper was left fighting for her life. Was the slaughter a revenge attack for the death of Misanyan during the operation?

Nearly two months later the investigation into the Ace of Diamonds massacre is going nowhere. No stone can be left unturned, and no matter how unlikely it may be, Heck has to be considered a suspect. DI Jude Penhaligan of Internal Investigations has been given the job of deciding whether or not Heck was involved. Although much reduced by grief and survivor’s guilt, Heck himself has no intention of being a bystander following the murder of his colleagues.

His only lead is a bangle snatched from the wrist of one of the killers. It suggests a link to the satanic Black Chapel murder case that was solved in Kiss of Death as a place to start. The Black Chapel killers were inspired by a black metal band, now retired to the Scottish countryside. Heck’s heading north! Once Penhaligan realises he has flown the coop, the chase is on. By dodging Internal Investigations, Heck has gone from a colleague who just needs to be ruled out to prime suspect.

From this point on, Rogue is all action. Heck reminds me of Parker in Richard Stark’s Point Blank, working his way up the criminal chain in ruthless, inexorable fashion; always beating the odds with a combination of street smarts, animal cunning and sheer bloody mindedness. Heck is a more human protagonist than Stark’s famously never-evolving antihero. Finch has given his character a traumatic back history and consequently a vulnerability which probably accounts for his popularity as much as his hard man persona. In particular, Heck’s relationships with women – his sister, Piper and Honeyford, for example – are nuanced, and allow him to stand out from the hard man copper crowd.

There is relatively little investigative work in Rogue. To a large extent, the novel succeeds or fails on its action sequences. Thankfully, Finch has included a number of them but two in particular stand out. The first is a shoot out on the motorway heading north, and the second is an especially extended sequence in the Scottish countryside. Both are excellent, dramatic, full of momentum and with a genuine sense of peril. Finch is also a successful horror writer, and he uses those skills to keep the tension ratcheted up.

Readers expecting a police procedural story might be slightly disappointed in this regard, but for my money Rogue more than delivers on its promise of Heck being let off his leash. After such a long delay, Finch must have felt some pressure when writing about Heck’s return. He needn’t have worried.

RoughJustice, Crime Fiction Lover website

In addition to all those, check out this one from top author and blogger, Donna Morfett, who classifies ROGUE as one of her top reads of 2024:

***

Okay, with ROGUE now discussed and done, let’s move onto the elephant in the room.

The one thing that sits in the backs of so many of our minds through from September to the year’s end (but which we’ll rarely admit to until around December), which is of course …

CHRISTMAS

I’m hoping to hit you with another completely original and free-to-read ghost story, right here on this blog, before the big occasional. Regular visitors will know that I try to do this every year. 

Unfortunately, it won’t be quite as easy this time. As I’ve already hinted, I have a mid-January deadline, and though I’m in a good position on that, it sometimes feels like madness to simply break off from a job like that in order to do something else.

I can’t make any promises on this, so all I can say is hang tight and we’ll see what we can do.

For anyone who considers it essential that they get their festive ghostly fix, all I can do is point you in the direction of my two relatively recent ghost collections, IN A DEEP, DARK DECEMBER and THE CHRISTMAS YOU DESERVE, both of which you’ll find several snippets from (and direct links to) if you follow this link back to a blogpost I made Last December: THE GHOSTING SEASON.  

There is also, of course, my British Fantasy Award shortlisted novella of 2010, SPARROWHAWK, which is another Christmas chiller, though in this case with romantic and historical elements as well.

However, in case you’ve already ‘done’ these collection, and I’m not able to deliver anything new before the end of the year, here, in chronological order, is a quick rundown of my 60 FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS GHOST AND HORROR SHORT STORIES (by other authors). Please don’t ask why I’ve chosen 60 instead of a more rounded-off number like 50 or 75 or 100; it just happened to be that these were all the stories I could remember. Also, worry not ... I’m not going to bore you with their outlines or offer reviews in each case. I’ve already said that I consider all of these to be outstanding efforts in the field. Just be advised that some of these will take some seeking out. (In addition, please don’t shout at me if I’ve missed out any good ones; just suggest them in the column underneath).

SIXTY CRACKING CHRISTMAS CHILLERS

(with lots of unconnected festive horror artwork 

just to add colour)

1. Horror: A True Tale by John Berwick Hardwood (1861)

2. The Crooked Mirror by Anton Chekov (1883)

3. Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)

4. Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk by Frank Cowper (1889)

5. The White Raven by Dick Donovan (1899)

6. Jerry Bundler by WW Jacobs (1901)

7. The Shadow by E Nesbit (1905)

8. Between the Lights by EF Benson (1912)

9. How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery by EF Benson (1912)

10. The Story of an Appearance and a Disappearance by MR James (1913)

11. The Dead by James Joyce (1914)

12. The Festival by HP Lovecraft (1925)

13. The Prescription by Marjorie Bowen (1929)

14. The Crime on Christmas Night by Gaston Leroux (1930)

15. Smee by AM Burrage (1931)

16. The Crown Derby Plate by Marjorie Bowen (1933)

17. Back for Christmas by John Collier (1939)

18. Christmas Reunion by Andrew Caldecott (1947)

19. A Christmas Game by ANL Munby (1950)

20. Someone in the Lift by LP Hartley (1955)

21. Florinda by Shamus Frazer (1956)

22. The Waits by LP Hartley (1961)

23. And All Around the House by Jack Oleck (1972)

24. Christmas Night by Elizabeth Walter (1975)

25. The Chimney by Ramsey Campbell (1977)

26. Nursery Tea by Mary Danby (1978)

27. Christmas Entertainment by Daphne Froome (1979)

28. The Night Before Christmas by Robert Bloch (1980)

29. Calling Card by Ramsey Campbell (1980)

30. The Peculiar Demesne by Russell Kirk (1980)

31. Come, Follow! by Sheila Hodgson (1982)

32. Red Christmas by David Garnett (1985)

33. To Dance by the Light of the Moon by Stephen Gallagher (1986)

34. A Dickensian Christmas by Lanyon Jones (1986)

35. The Grotto by Alexander Welch (1988)

36. The Uninvited by John Glasby (1989)

37. The Deliverer by Simon MacCulloch (1989)

38. A Present for Christmas by AJ Merak (John Glasby) (1989)

39. A Christmas Story by James Dorr (1992)

40. In the Bleak Midwinter by Robert Swindells (1992)

41. Christmas Past by David Belbin (1992)

42. Christmas Game by Susan Price (1993)

43. Green by Mark Morris (1994)

44. Grandma Babka's Christmas Ginger And The Good Luck/Bad Luck Leshy by Ken Wisman (1994)

45. ... And Eight Rabid Pigs by David Gerold (1995)

46. The Travelling Saleman’s Christmas Special by C. Bruce Hunter (1995)

47. Christmas Dinner by Steve Harris (1996)

48. The Decorations by Ramsey Campbell (2005)

49. The Last to be Found by Christopher Harman (2006)

50. Loving Angels by Gary McMahon (2007)

51. Last Christmas by John Llewellyn Probert (2008)

52. Where the Stones Lie by Richard Farren Barbber (2012

53. With Their Eyes All Aglow by Jeff C. Carter (2013)

54. Dark Christmas by Jeanette Winterson (2013)

55. A Christmas Tradition by Peter James (2014)

56. The Psychomenteum by Steve Duffy (2020)

57. The Fourth Call by Ramsey Campbell (2021)

58. The Hanging of the Greens by Andrew Michael Hurley (2021)

59. Grey Glass by Reggie Oliver (2021)

60. Carol of the Bells and Chains by Laura Purcell (2023)

Uncompromising action, demented villains

Today is publication day for ROGUE, the eighth novel in the Mark Heckenburg series.

I’m delighted but also aware that it must seem - certainly to those who follow the Heck books - as if it’s been an age in the writing, but that actually isn’t true. It was written as a direct follow-up to KISS OF DEATH, which was published in 2018, but a change of publisher and then the Covid crisis created an interruption to the natural flow of things, which the Heck saga almost didn’t survive.

It was mainly due to my own determination to keep my favourite character going that the concept remained afloat during this period, though it would still have sunk without the strong encouragement of my wife and business partner, Cathy, who considered the million-selling series too worthwhile and valuable to simply abandon (while the persuasive powers of the innumerable fans who sent me emails, pms and texts, begging me to continue - for which I can’t thank them all enough - was instrumental too).

Anyway, I won’t say much more about ROGUE here, as you can all get hold of it yourselves now and make your own judgements. But the meat of today’s blogpost will contain some of the delightful reviews at the book has had so far. 

Let’s get on with it ...

What the Heck?

Okay ... so ROGUE is out at last. My best-selling series of crime/thriller novels is back on the road.

As promised, I won’t belabour you with any further snippets of content info. I’ll simply say Happy Publication Day to my ‘stop at nothing’ detective, and now give the floor to a bunch of people whose professional expertise and literary opinions I value very highly indeed, so that they can offer their own views on the matter ...

‘Finch’s original hero returns explosively. As hardboiled as cop fiction gets. Viciously action-packed but layered with feeling and a deep sense of loss. An assault on the senses in book form.’

Helen S Fields

Author of The Institution and the DI Callanach series

‘If any Heck fans were wondering what he’d get up to once the constraints of being a police officer were lifted, wonder no more.
     In this fast-moving tale, he takes on ever more dangerous foes as he hunts the people behind the massacre of his closest colleagues.
     Now suspended, he can’t rely on backup from his colleagues. Despite this, he won’t back down or take the easy path, even when the odds against him look hopeless.
     My mistake was assuming I could read a bit and get on with my work, but each time I picked it up, I didn’t want to stop reading.
     Explosive action-packed and gripping. A worthy addition to a great series.’

David Beckler

Author of the Antonia Conti series

‘Need a rest after tearing through ROGUE, the latest Heck novel by Paul Finch. A thrill-per-page ride with action sequences that wouldn't be out of place in a Bond film.’

David Jackson

Author of Don't Make a Sound, The Resident and the Nathan Cody series

‘Author Paul Finch should be a household name. He is the type of author admired by his peers and readers alike. In ROGUE we have an excellent, superbly written action thriller from one of the UK’s best. In Heck’s latest gut-and-heart-wrenching tale we have tough action, intrigue and a revenge driven maverick hero reminiscent (to me) of a northern Luther. I loved this book, I think you will too.’

Matt Hilton

Author of the Grey and Villere series

‘Finch’s ROGUE is utterly unputdownable as it’s the consummate thriller that thrills, excites, exhilarates and catches you off guard with beautifully placed twists. Excuse me while I head off to hammer on Finch’s door to demand the next novel.’

Graham Smith / John Ryder

Author of Watching the Bodies and First Shot

‘Brutal, brilliant contemporary noir with a jet-black heart. Heck is formidable, tough as old boots, and makes for irresistible reading.’

Tom Mead

Author of Death and the Conjuror

‘A gritty, dark, explosive crime thriller. Heck is hard to beat!’

Alex Shaw

Author of the Jack Tate SAS series

‘Paul Finch is one of the best police procedural writers out there. If you’re a fan, don’t miss this page-turner!’

Marnie Riches

Author of the Detective Jackie Cooke series

‘Heck’s return is not only so welcome and anticipated, but so damn thrilling. Finch’s flair for relentless, unputdownable excitement is here in abundance, dragging us lucky readers face first through his trademark grit and darkness. Loving it!’

Rob Parker

Author of the Ben Bracken series

‘ROGUE is my first foray into Heck’s world and what a rollocking, riveting page-turner it is! Now I’ll have to start the series at the beginning!’

Caroline England

Author of The Stranger Beside Me

‘As packed with twisting mystery, as it is full-throttle action, Paul Finch brings Heck back with a bang! The very definition of a page-turner, it all leads up to a thrilling finale I guarantee you won’t forget in a hurry. Fans really are in for a treat.’

Paul Kane

Author of Her Husband's Grave, The Family Lie and Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell

‘After an absence of several years, Detective Sergeant Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg is back with a bang in this latest action-packed thriller from Standish-based novelist, Paul Finch.
     In this latest instalment, Rogue, (already available for pre-order online), Finch’s “lone wolf” hero is up against tougher odds than he’s faced in any of the previous seven books, pursuing a gang of cop-killers all over the country, while being hunted by his own team and several deadly-dangerous hitmen.
     All the Wigan-born writer’s trademarks are here: raw, uncompromising action, tough dialogue and a whole host of weird and demented villains.
     It also page-flips at a furious pace, including one explosive chase sequence up the M6 from Heck’s hometown of Bradburn (a thinly-veiled Wigan), which literally had this reader on the edge of his seat.
     Finch, himself a former police officer, has probably surpassed himself with this latest offering in the Heck canon, delivering a pacy, hardboiled romp of a crime novel, which ends in most satisfying fashion. Highly recommended.’

Wigan Today

Promote your book with some acting talent

Want to do something different to promote your next book? How about this? Select certain sections of text and condense them down to the raw dialogue - in other words, turn them into snippets of audio drama. Then get a bunch of talented amateur actors, furnish them with copies of the ‘script’, get them on a mic together and see what happens ...

As part of the promotional strategy for my new Heck novel, ROGUE (published on the 24th of this month, but ready to preorder right NOW), I’ve done exactly this, producing new and, I hope, quite original book trailers. And in today’s blogpost, if you say tuned, you can see AND HEAR them. 

You’ll also note the several images with which I’ve peppered this post: those are the actors themselves hard at work on the project. If you want to know how it all happened, you’ll need to stay tuned a little bit longer.  

In addition today, I’ll talk about my horror output now that we’re getting to the darker end of the year, and to round things off, will hit you with another of my new-look Thrillers, Chillers, focussing on some of the latest books, both old and new, that I’ve recently read and which have really done it for me.

Before any of that, though, let’s get onto the subject of ...

Trailers ... trailers ... trailers ... trailers ...

The first thing to say is that I’m not here today to tell you how to make a book trailer. Initially, because I’m not by any means a font of knowledge on this matter. But in addition, because the internet is already full of professional and artistic individuals offering this service to writers, and though they’d obviously charge, they can do a far better job than me.

What I AM going to talk about, though, is the brand new step I’ve taken this year - brand new to me at least - as part of the promotion package for the new DS Heckenburg thriller, ROGUE (the ebook of which, I reiterate, can be pre-ordered right now, though both the ebook and the paperback will be available immediately on October 24): 

It’s this dramatisation business I alluded to earlier.

I’ve no doubt there are several questions you’ll already want to ask about this. So, let’s go:

1) Why bother doing your own promo?

Well, it’s an understandable position to take. We all like to think that our publishers and their promotions people will take care of publicity. They should do. And most of the time they do, and sometimes they’re even successful ... but not always. In truth, I’ve never met a working author yet who doesn’t gripe at least a little bit about his or her experience of the mass-market publicity machine.

But even if you implicitly trust your publisher to showcase your new book in the best way possible and literally drive an avalanche of sales, how can it hurt you do some promotional work yourself? Most of us do that already, of course. We sit on panels at literary festivals, we attend launches and signings, we give interviews to the press, we write guest blogs for book review websites. But in this age of mass media, there are other things we can do too. Granted, not all of them are cost-free, or can be done on a whim and require next to no time or effort ... but I suppose it all depends how much you want to put into promoting your latest piece of work. It’s your call in the end. No one will force you.

2) Isn’t self-promotion a bit self-indulgent?

Well, the short answer is: Yes, of course it is. But if you want people to read your book, or even just be aware that it’s out there, what else are you going to do? Yes, word of mouth will travel, but it doesn’t always travel quickly. Unless you’re prepared to pay for big advertising, there aren’t too many other avenues open to you. 

3) Won’t internet folk just get sick of seeing you talking about your own book, and switch off?

Absolutely they will. Which is why it pays dividends to think laterally, varying what you are doing in terms of promo, experimenting a little, creating a campaign that is slightly different from the norm, and perhaps more interesting each time. In truth, the only limit to what you can do here is the limit of your imagination, but it’s easy to say that. In any case, today, we’re only going to talk about one new method. The one I’ve already mentioned: dramatising passages from the text, getting seriously talented people to perform it, and then weaving it all into a series of eye and ear-catching trailers. Here’s how it happened in the case of ROGUE ...

Audio drama

My wife (and business partner), Cathy, and I, are fortunate enough to both be members of WIGAN LITTLE THEATRE, a dynamic, multi-award-winning operation, which produces top quality on-stage drama at a rate of one play a month, all the year round. Yes, you heard that correctly - ALL the year round. this means, producing about ten plays, invariably to semi-professional standards, every year. After one such exceptional production, Tim Firth’s Sheila's Island, way back in April this year, it suddenly struck me as astonishing that I hadn't tried to make use of this remarkable pool of talent to assist me on the publicity trail. And when I raised this issue in the theatre bar with a group of actors who Cath and I are particularly friendly with, I was amazed at how keen everyone was to participate.

Of course, it wasn't as simple as that.

The first thing I had to do was select chunks of the new book, ROGUE, and narrow them down into pieces of drama, create mini-scripts in effect, which I could then send out to people who didn’t know much about the plot at this stage, and thus had no real context. Next, I had to secure a producer/director/production manager, who could turn what at the time was a still a concept rather than a workable plan into something solid. Then I had to secure a recording date on which everyone would be available. And then find a recording venue, a studio in effect. 

The first of these challenges I met quickly because the positive response from all concerned had kindled my enthusiasm no end. It was also the case that I was very in tune with ROGUE by this time. Though I’d completed it several years earlier, Cathy and I had been working hard to devise promotional strategies, and so had refamiliarised ourselves with the book massively. The actors meanwhile were very receptive to my context notes, and so that hurdle was overcome relatively quickly as well.

Securing a production manager/techie guy was also relatively painless. My first port of all was Cash Productions, as owned and operated by pro TV cameraman and movie-maker, Iain Cash, who was more than willing to lend us his expertise. But it was after this when the problems started. All those who'd initially agreed to participate were still willing, but by now it was summer, and so the holiday season was approaching and all the kids were off-school. It was going to be asking a lot therefore to find an afternoon that would suit everyone, and not just the cast, but Cash Productions too.

Somehow, we managed it. Don’t ask me how. Sorry if you were expecting pearls of wisdom on this. I honestly think we just got lucky on that front.

In terms of studio space, this was even more complex. Obviously we had to try and keep the costs down, which meant trying to avoid hiring somewhere. In the end we settled for our own house. We had enough room thankfully, and our springer spaniel Buddy, who’s been moping a lot since the loss of his brother last year, was content to sit quietly and be petted. This would also enable us to reward our amateur cast with as much food and booze as they could manage once the recording session had wrapped.

With everything in the can, it was then a matter of Iain Cash and I going into postproduction, assessing the raw material we’d gathered, editing where necessary - and we had to do a lot of that because, by design, we’d recorded far more than we knew we’d need (to keep trailers interesting, you must keep them short and tight) - and then splicing it all together as effectively as possible.

As to whether we’ve succeeded in that, you can be the judges. Several of the trailers we made - or perhaps I should call them SOUNDBITES - are posted below. Just make sure you TURN THE SOUND ON when you check them out, as otherwise that will defeat the whole object.

I won’t deny that we’re on a learning curve here. As far as I know, this is the first time something like this has ever been done to promote a book. I could be wrong on that, of course - don’t hold me to it. But I’m reasonably confident that readers and book fans won’t have encountered this very often before.

Is it something we’ll do again when the next book comes out? Very likely. And I suspect we’ll be better at it then. I urge all writers who want to do their bit when it comes to promoting their upcoming work to consider trying something similar, because if nothing else, you’ll have one hell of a time while you’re doing it.

My thanks now go to Iain Cash and Cash Productions, and the Wigan Little Theatre crowd, Mark Lloyd, Stacey Vernon, John Churnside, Helen Gray, Joey Wiswell, John Dudley, Nicola Reynolds and Tara Haywood ... for going above and beyond the call of duty to make this thing happen.

One final time, ROGUE hits the shops both as an ebook and paperback, on October 24. And now ...

The scary stuff

It’s almost Halloween. So, it would be pretty remiss of me not to mention some out-and-out horror stuff. I think I’ve just got time to remind you all that ELEMENTAL FORCES has now been published. It’s the latest entry in the excellent anthology series, ABC OF HORROR from Flametree Press, as edited by the tireless Mark Morris.

My own contribution (my second to this series, I’m proud to say), is Jack-a-Lent, a Liverpool-set crime story drawing on the old myths of the city, which very quickly becomes riddled with supernatural terror. If that isn’t enough to interest you, look at some of the other authors involved. I mean, it’s a no-brainer really, isn’t it.

On a similar subject, I’m going to mention, as I do every year around this time, SEASON OF MIST, my autumnal coming-of-age horror novella, first published in 2010, and still available as a paperback, ebook and in Audible.

Looking beyond October 31, in fact probably from the day after November 5, we’ll be thinking increasingly about Christmas. And if you like Christmas spook stories, why not grab another novella of mine from 2010? 

SPARROWHAWK, one of my favourite pieces of work to date, is also available in ebook, paperback or Audible. 

It’s set in early Victorian London during a bitterly cold Christmas, wherein a range of festive spectres are summoned to confront an embittered veteran of the Afghan War.

On top of that, if Yuletide scare-fare is to your liking, you might also try IN A DEEP, DARK DECEMBER, or THE CHRISTMAS YOU DESERVE, two collections of my Christmas spook stories, which again are available in Kindle, paperback and Audible.

And now, to finish things off today, as promised ...

THRILLERS, CHILLERS, SHOCKERS AND KILLERS

Works of dark fiction  that I have recently read, thoroughly enjoyed and heartily recommend (sometimes with a few lighter ones mixed in).

BY BIZARRE HANDS by Joe R Lansdale (1989)

The weird preacher whose obsessive lunacy always brings death. The Gulf Coast camping trip that quickly turns hideous. The roving teen troublemakers who get far more trouble than they can handle. Lansdale’s first collection of short stories is a mixed bag of horror and crime, but written to perfection, packed with odious fragments of humanity, terrifying scenarios and fist-in-the-face violence so gut-thumpingly brutal that you’ll never forget it.

SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING by Alan Sillitoe (1958)

In the late 50s, a Nottingham factory worker causes domestic chaos with his drinking, his carryings-on with married women, and his general disrespect. All-time classic of working-class literature, still as raw, energised and passionate in the 2020s, and of course, flawlessly written, taking the reader right back to another time and place, making the boisterous world of the Angry Young Man as real today as it was then.

SOME WILL NOT SLEEP by Adam L.G. Nevill (2016)

‘The beautiful tall house on the hill’, where trespassers may suffer lifelong damage. The roommate engaged in something unspeakable. The innocent children menaced by the abominable pig thing. The isolated cottage in the Nordic wilds, and the monstrosity that calls it home. And much more. A masterclass in genuine, continuous terror. Nevill writes magnificent prose, but his stories cut like ripsaws.

ROOM AT THE TOP by John Braine (1957)

A former POW embarks on an ambitious career in an industrial Yorkshire town, using every trick in the book, and the local women, to advance his interests. Less an Angry Young Man diatribe, and more a bitter-sweet romance as a young tough learns the hard way that he’s a tad less pitiless than he thought. A stark picture of austerity-ridden postwar Britain, lovingly and handsomely evoked and deeply redolent of a land on the cusp of social revolt.

THE GRAVEYARD APARTMENT by Mariko Koike (1993)

A Tokyo family takes a new apartment amid a complex of old temples and derelict cemeteries, but soon wish they hadn’t. A real slow burner this one but jam-packed with all the typical jolts of eerie horror we find in Japanese spook stories, finally building to a bone-jarring climax. Koike writes with chilling effectiveness, while Deborah Boliver Boehm translates in style.

THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi (2008)

When US author Doug Preston moved to Italy, he became fascinated by a series of grotesque murders committed by ‘the Monster’, a predator who was still at large. His own investigation followed, and this is it. A masterclass in True Crime, packed with grim detail, but endlessly tense and intriguing (especially when the authors themselves become suspects!), and delving deep into Tuscan lore, arcane ritual, rumours of secret societies etc. As absorbing as any work of fiction.

HECK is back, ROGUE ready to pre-order

At long last I’m able to post this. The e-book of ROGUE, the next Heck novel, Number 8 in the series, is now available for pre-order right HERE, with the paperback to follow shortly.

It will officially be published on October 24, and all you have to do make sure you get it the moment it comes available is follow this LINK.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, thanks very much to all of those Heck fans and loyal readers who encouraged and cajoled me with their messages and posts throughout the period when Heck was ‘off the air’. A change of publisher coincided (tremendously unfortunately) with the Covid crisis, and the Mark Heckenburg series was not the only project to hit the buffers because of this.

I wish we could have got things going again a little sooner, but looking back now, the world as I knew it after Covid was very different from the world before. People had left their positions and others’ priorities had changed. What once had been hot no longer was. The upshot was that it soon became apparent I was going to have to put in way more work than usual if I wanted to see the next DS Heckenburg novel, which was already written (and had been for a couple of years!), see the light of day.

Thankfully though, that time now has come. I’ll be talking a little bit more about it further down, when I offer you a first glimpse of the Dramatis Personae of this all-new Mark Heckenburg thriller.

In addition today, I’ll be posting another Thrillers, Chillers, hitting you all with another quick blurb for each of the novels or anthologies that I’ve recently read and been impressed by.

ROGUE

Who’s Who

ROGUE picks up pretty much where KISS OF DEATH, the seventh Mark Heckenburg left off, Heck now on the trail of the two anonymous hitmen who gunned down 26 of his friends and colleagues and left him to take the blame. That’s all I’m going to say for now about the synopsis. If you can’t live without at least a little bit more, I suggest you get yourself over to the Amazon SITE, where it’s currently on pre-order, and feast on the slightly more extensive info we provide there. 

If, on the other hand, you simply MUST know everything, all I can say is get your order in. It isn’t too long until October 24.

And now, as promised, a rollcall of all the key characters in ROGUE (some of whom regular readers will recognise, some of whom are completely new to the saga) ...

Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg

Formerly a detective sergeant in the Serial Crimes Unit sub-section of the National Crime Group, currently on suspension. An instinct investigator rather than an analyst. Not exactly a maverick, but he does prefer to go it alone, and is constantly frustrated by what he considers the inadequacies of the job’s higher echelons. Can be ruthless but mostly is affable, though at present he’s carrying a lot of grief, along with a lot of suppressed anger.

Detective Constable Gail Honeyford

One of Heck’s best and most loyal friends in the job. She is feisty, outspoken and excitable, and sometimes insufficiently respectful of her supervisors, for which she often gets reprimanded.

Detective Chief Superintendent Gwen Straker

SIO on Operation Sledgehammer and a very popular supervisor, Gwen has a maternal style rather than a bossy one, but like all good mothers, she can be firm when it’s required. Very measured. Doesn’t get shouty but can lay the law down when she needs to.

Detective Inspector Jude Penhaligon

Internal Investigations officer, so an outsider from the start – but that doesn’t bother her. Very well educated, cool and analytical. Doesn’t miss much and rarely gets ruffled.

Director Joe Wullerton

Director of the National Crime Group, and one of Britain’s most senior and respected detectives. A gruff but approachable commander, who’s politically savvy enough to trust his top investigators (though he sometimes wonders why). Close to retirement but still a calm, capable leader.

Detective Superintendent Mike Garrickson

A throwback to the ‘good old days’. A diamond geezer who’s often so close to the underworld that he could equally be a villain. However, he’s deceptively clever and shouldn’t be underestimated.

Snake Fletcher

A classic inner-city toerag. A metalhead drug-user, spiv and sneak thief, who has also worked as Heck’s informer, though recently it’s become apparent that he has been playing for other teams. A weaselly, cowardly rat.

Dana Black

Heck’s older sister, and though she doesn’t always approve of his methods (and dislikes the cops anyway), she and he are the only two left of their family, and so the bond is tight. Very working class in her attitude and manner.

Leroy Butler

A former bank-robber but with a code of ethics. He dislikes the police but feels he owes Heck because Heck once took a terrible risk when he pulled his children out of a housefire.

Detective Constable Gary Quinnell

Another of Heck’s mates. Big boisterous character, a Welsh rugby union player and something of a roughneck even though he’s also a practising Christian. Tough as teak.

Kyle Armstrong

President of a Manchester Hells Angels chapter, and a dangerous, violent career criminal. At the same time, a cool, calculating customer who no one should underestimate. Devilishly handsome.

I should add that this isn't the entire list. The names and details of certain other participants have been withheld for the time being to avoid hitting you with any unfortunate SPOILERS.

THRILLERS, CHILLERS, SHOCKERS AND KILLERS

Works of dark fiction  that I have recently read, thoroughly enjoyed and heartily recommend (sometimes with a few lighter ones occasionally mixed in).

CHILD OF GOD by Cormac McCarthy (1973)

A rejected misanthrope goes it alone in the Appalachian wilderness and slowly degenerates into a predatory beast. Short but disturbing novel from the king of dark fables, and a far cry from the ‘subnormal mountain man’ horror some may expect, the antihero at its heart de-evolving through neglect and isolation. Sad, distressing, and a groundbreaker in its effort to understand extreme deviance.

THE ENTITY by Frank De Felitta (1978)

An LA single mother is raped repeatedly by a half-seen being, but an investigating psychiatrist suspects it’s a painful delusion created by trauma. Non-sensational, psychologically complex but fictionalised account of true-life events that shocked America in the 1970s. More like a case study than a horror novel, highly intelligent and soberly paced, and though hair-raising in parts, cleverly keeping many possibilities open. 

MULADONA by Eric Stener Carlson (2016)

Texas 1918, the height of the Spanish Flu catastrophe. An abandoned boy falls victim to repeated visits by a demon, who, if his identity isn’t discovered during the course of seven terrifying tales, will drag him to Hell. Effective blend of Hispanic myth and occult horror, with a literary subtext about ignorance, fundamentalism and hypocrisy. Packed with full-on scares, and exquisitely written.

IMPERIUM by Robert Harris (2006)

The struggles of lawyer, Marcus Cicero, during the dying days of the Roman Republic. Political chicanery par excellence, set in a distant but not unfamiliar world, Harris hitting us with complex, intriguing tale and vividly evoking an era long gone.

GRENDEL by John Gardner (1971)

A retelling of the Dark Age poem but from the perspective of its main antagonist, Grendel. A marvel of fantasy fiction from an author who left us too soon. Mythology, philosophy and much metaphysical pondering combine to create a thinking man’s epic, complete with comedy, tragedy, heroism and brutality. At the same time a study of isolation, which asks lots of questions but provides no easy answers. A stunning literary feat, well worth its ‘modern classic’ status.

TESTIMONY by Mark Chadbourn (2014)

True case of an idyllic Welsh farm, which malignant spirits soon turn into a literal Hell. A British Amityville minus the charlatanism, the eerie tale of Heol Fanog is better known now after recent TV publicity, but for the full skinny read this excellent study by Mark Chadbourn, who flexes his journalist muscles in leaving no stone unturned to hunt an elusive truth. Very thorough, very engrossing, very frightening.