Blog Tour – ‘Bryant & May – Hall of Mirrors’ by Christopher Fowler

‘Hall of Mirrors’ is the fifteenth book in the Bryant & May series.  It was published on the 22nd March 2018 in hardback by Doubleday, and as an eBook by Transworld Digital.  I was invited to take part in the blog tour for this book by Anne Cater of Random Things Through My Letterbox.

There is a chance to win a copy of ‘Hall of Mirrors’ further down the page.  First though you will be wanting to know what the book is about.

 

Book Blurb

The year is 1969 and ten guests are about to enjoy a country house weekend at Tavistock Hall. But one amongst them is harbouring thoughts of murder. . .

The guests also include the young detectives Arthur Bryant and John May – undercover, in disguise and tasked with protecting Monty Hatton-Jones, a whistle-blower turning Queen’s evidence in a massive bribery trial. Luckily, they’ve got a decent chap on the inside who can help them – the one-armed Brigadier, Nigel ‘Fruity’ Metcalf.

The scene is set for what could be the perfect country house murder mystery, except that this particular get-together is nothing like a Golden Age classic. For the good times are, it seems, coming to an end. The house’s owner – a penniless, dope-smoking aristocrat – is intent on selling the estate (complete with its own hippy encampment) to a secretive millionaire but the weekend has only just started when the millionaire goes missing and murder is on the cards. But army manoeuvres have closed the only access road and without a forensic examiner, Bryant and May can’t solve the case. It’s when a falling gargoyle fells another guest that the two incognito detectives decide to place their future reputations on the line. And in the process discover that in Swinging Britain nothing is quite what it seems…

So gentle reader, you are cordially invited to a weekend in the country. Expect murder, madness and mayhem in the mansion!

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‘Hall of Mirrors’ is available to purchase from Amazon UK:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bryant-May-Hall-Mirrors-Book-ebook/dp/B0732K6JH4/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1523385562&sr=1-1

 

Competition

One very lucky person will win a hardback copy of ‘Hall of Mirrors’.  To enter just leave a comment telling me who your favourite fictional detective is.

 

Terms and Conditions

This competition is open to UK residents only.

The closing date is 11:59 p.m. on the 18th April 2018.

The winner will be chosen at random within 7 days of the closing date.  Their details will be given to Anne Cater who will then pass them on to the publisher.

 

About Christopher Fowler

Christopher Fowler was born in Greenwich, London. He is the multi award-winning author of 45 novels and short story collections, and the author of the Bryant & May mysteries. His novels include ‘Roofworld’, ‘Spanky’, ‘Psychoville’, ‘Calabash’ and two volumes of memoirs, the award-winning ‘Paperboy’ and ‘Film Freak’. In 2015 he won the CWA Dagger In The Library. His latest books are ‘Wild Chamber’ and ‘Hall Of Mirrors’. His most recent collection ‘Red Gloves’, 25 stories of unease, marked his first 25 years of writing. Other recent novels include the comedy-thriller ‘Plastic’, the haunted house chiller ‘Nyctophobia’ and the JG Ballard-esque ‘The Sand Men’.

He has written comedy and drama for BBC radio, script, features and columns for national press, graphic novels, the play ‘Celebrity’ and the ‘War Of The Worlds’ videogame for Paramount, starring Sir Patrick Stewart. His short story ‘The Master Builder’ became a feature film entitled ‘Through The Eyes Of A Killer’, starring Tippi Hedren. Among his awards are the Edge Hill prize 2008 for ‘Old Devil Moon’, the Last Laugh prize 2009 for ‘The Victoria Vanishes’ and again in 2015 for ‘The Burning Man’.

Christopher has achieved several ridiculous schoolboy fantasies, releasing a terrible Christmas pop single, becoming a male model, writing a stage show, posing as the villain in a Batman graphic novel, running a night club, appearing in the Pan Books of Horror and standing in for James Bond. After living in the USA and France he is now married and lives in London’s King’s Cross and Barcelona.

 

Links

Website – http://www.christopherfowler.co.uk/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/chrisfowlerauthor

Twitter – https://twitter.com/Peculiar

 

Blog Tour – ‘Friends and Traitors’ by John Lawton

‘Friends and Traitors’, the latest book in the Inspector Troy series, was published on the 5th April 2018 by Grove Press and is available in hardback, paperback and as an eBook.  I was invited to take part in this blog tour by Ayo Onatade.  I have an extract for all of you, but first here’s what the book is about.

 

Book Blurb

It is 1958. Chief Superintendent Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard, newly promoted after good service during Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to Britain, is not looking forward to a Continental trip with his older brother, Rod. Rod was too vain to celebrate being fifty so instead takes his entire family on ‘the Grand Tour’ for his fifty-first birthday: Paris, Siena, Florence, Vienna, Amsterdam. Restaurants, galleries and concert halls. But Frederick Troy never gets to Amsterdam.

After a concert in Vienna he is approached by an old friend whom he has not seen for years – Guy Burgess, a spy for the Soviets, who says something extraordinary: ‘I want to come home.’ Troy dumps the problem on MI5 who send an agent to debrief Burgess – but when the man is gunned down only yards from the embassy, the whole plan unravels with alarming speed and Troy finds himself a suspect.

As he fights to prove his innocence, Troy discovers that Burgess is not the only ghost who has returned to haunt him…

 

Extract

It was past midnight when Burgess staggered to the door.

“What say we meet over Christmas?”

“Fraid not, Guy.  I’m leaving for Berlin as soon as I can get a flight.  The air corridor is rather crowded at the moment as you may imagine.”

“Berlin?  What’s in Berlin?”

Troy was never going to answer that.

Burgess stood in the doorway looking up at a clear, cold winter sky.

“No raid tonight.  Makes a change.”

“The war’s been over three years, Guy.”

He twitched.  Shook his head as through trying to dislodge an insect from his hair.

“Eh?  What?  Bloody hell, so it has.  Must be more pissed than I thought.  Who’d ever have thought we’d end up missing the war?  Hot war …cold war …that’s a joke …this isn’t a cold war …it’s a lukewarm egg custard of a war.”

Burgess trundled off down the yard towards St. Martin’s Lane, to the corner where Ruby the Prostitute had stood until a matter of weeks ago–unsteady on his feet, happy as a newt.

If there really had been a raid on, Troy would have left him on the sofa under an eiderdown rather than booting him out on a cold December night.  But there wasn’t.  There might never be again, and Troy saw no reason to take him in.

As Burgess turned the corner Troy wondered if, this time, he might actually have seen the last of him.

~~~~~

Has this extract left you wanting to read more?  ‘Friends and Traitors’ is available to buy from Amazon UK:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Friends-Traitors-Inspector-Troy-Lawton-ebook/dp/B0777X752S/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1523382631&sr=1-1

 

About John Lawton

John Lawton is the director of over forty television programs, author of a dozen screenplays, several children’s books, seven Inspector Troy novels and two standalones. Lawton’s work has earned him comparisons to John le Carré and Alan Furst. Lawton lives in a remote hilltop village in Derbyshire.