Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

I’m a screenwriting graduate from Falmouth University Film School, UK, now embarking on a career as an indie author. Alongside my writing I also design journals and format novels under my freelance company Pennard Press. When I find a free ten minutes, you’d usually find me hunting down vegan food, cycling country lanes or learning a new craft — I’m currently teaching myself book-binding and (faux) leather work.

Which one of your characters would you least like to meet in real life?

Without a doubt, the gywandras. In my debut novel The Frequency, the gywandras is a face-less figure made of molten black shadow that leeches upon negative thoughts. As the story goes on, it is linked to a string of brutal possessions. There’s also Vanessa: a cold, manipulative occultist that is always five steps ahead of my protagonists.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?

Gosh, where to begin. David Mitchell, writer of Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks, balances time-hopping, mind-bending high concept novels with beautiful prose and rich character work. Contemporary writer Sally Rooney, author of the beautiful Normal People, has a way of writing relationships in such a realistic — and brutally honest — way that she often leaves me grieving for relationships I’ve never had! Anthony Doerr, Andre Aciman, and Neil Gaiman are highly influential and have, in my opinion, never put a step wrong with their novels.

The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?

I think people still widely associate the horror genre with pulp novels from the 70’s and 80’s — the outright macabre, body horror slashers that have very little going on under the surface.

But for me, horror is much about what lies beneath the action. To quote my own novel, ‘there’s a horror that can only be found in the living.’ I believe that the horror genre has so much potential to really examine humanities deepest, darkest fears, and explore how people can react when faced with their worst existential nightmares.

We need to continue to champion and support horror that has something to say. Books that come to mind such as Silence of the Lambs, Never Let Me Go, Outer Dark, Lord of the Flies, Bird Box, Annihilation — the list goes on and on.

A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years?

Without a shadow of the doubt, Covid-19 is definitely going to spawn a slew of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, biological horrors, and claustrophobic psychological thrillers. The public’s trust in governments across the globe is also at an all time low, and I can see some more projects in the vein of The Purge rising in popularity. I myself have a few ideas knocking around for all of those categories — though most will be filed into my ‘Doctor Who Ideas’ folder.

Given the dark, violent and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it?

I think it’s for the same reason that people ride rollercoasters, sky dive, and climb high-rises without safety equipment: to experience the thrill and the adrenaline of being close to death’s door — but at a comfortable arm’s length.

What, if anything, is currently missing from the horror genre?

Although not strictly horror, I would love to see a huge reprise of the survival genre. Growing up in the noughties we were treated to books and films such as 127 Hours, Buried, Touching The Void, Everest etc. I often find those kind of things scarier than monster flicks or hauntings because they bridge the gap between fiction and reality — they could happen to anyone. Some are even based on true stories. The scariest ideas are ones that touch too close to home.

What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice of?

Yes I’m really looking forward to Melody Razak’s debut novel Moth which is set during India’s partition in the 1940’s. There’s a lot of buzz for it being an intimate portrait of family in a hostile political climate, which really is right up my street. It’s coming this week (24th June).

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?

I’m still in the early stages of publishing my debut novel where I’ve yet to have a review — either good or bad. I’ve had my fair share of constructive criticism from beta readers and critique partners, which helped the novel develop. Their comments, such as being too forthright with theme and overly generous with backstory, have stuck with me when redrafting — and all for the better!

What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?

As I say often, the most difficult aspect of writing is re-writing. I can knock out first drafts relatively quickly, and always have new ideas pinging around my head. I can’t say I’ve ever suffered from writers block. But true writing — and the most difficult part — is the redrafting and the editing, refining and making sense of the mess that is your first draft. I’ve had to part ways with huge set pieces, reams of interesting dialogue, backstory, and flashbacks. To say it felt like severing a limb each time is an understatement! But I’m at a point in my career where I’ve developed a decent instinct to know whether something will work in a story as I’m writing. But hey, I’m a pantser — so I can make no promises!

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?

Anything is on the table for me as long as I have an idea that excites me and has enough legs to fill a 90,000 word novel. I will always write diversely and inclusively, as I want to reflect the people I know and the experiences I’ve had. Social and existential themes will always bubble under the surface because I wear my heart on my sleeve where the state of the world is concerned.

But maybe erotica. That genre demands a specific skillset.

Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years?
Absolutely, sometimes progress is stagnant and other times it’s in leaps and bounds. My development is an interesting one because I first had to break away from screenwriting before transitioning into literary writing. The skeleton of both formats are largely the same, so for me it was finding my voice amongst the prose. At first I ran wild with this new found liberation that comes with a far less limited word count, and the ability to be inside my characters’ heads and project their perspectives onto the story. So I had to find a balance amongst all that, strip back what was unnecessary or expository, and be more succinct and powerful with my descriptions.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?

My screenwriting lecturer once said (and I’m sure I’m disastrously misquoting him here) that we should always write with cause and effect in mind. It’s where that forward momentum comes from; it keeps your protagonists active within the plot; and creates nuances in characters’ relationships. It’s something that’s always at the forefront on my mind whilst writing.

Which of your characters is your favourite?

Wow, that’s hard. There’s three main protagonists within The Frequency that share equal page time. Rasha, a teenage Syrian refuge living in the wilds of Cornwall, England, has become my spirit animal. She’s at that age where she still approaches events with a curious mind and an open-heart, but she’s also learning to be a tough in a world that can be cruel and unforgiving. Then there’s Sam, a flawed man dealing with addiction and his sexuality. A lot of his inner monologues are reflective of where I was a few years ago, and so I see a lot of myself in him. He’s also flippant and unpredictable — oozing with a lot of misplaced anger — so you just never know what trouble he’s going to get into next. Then there’s Trish, who is a real mother hen, an ode to all the woman that were in my life when growing up, relentlessly loving and supporting, and always willing to make sacrifices for her loved ones.

Which of your books best represents you?

The Frequency is my first book but it’s definitely a springboard into the subject matter that I want to explore moving forward. The Frequency champions diversity, is socially aware and tackles sweeping existential themes, all the while being a fast-paced page-turner with lots of twists and set-pieces — and plenty of macabre and gothic elements to boot!

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?

It’s a line that has become somewhat of a tagline for the book: ‘We all belong to the frequency.’ I like it because it’s immediately mysterious and foreboding, and throughout the book it takes on various different meanings.

Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?

My next book is a sequel to The Frequency and takes places in Manchester, four years after the events of book one. Ghostly apparitions and gruesome murders are on the rise. Our protagonists attempt to infiltrate an underground occultist group called The Hive, but what they find there is beyond anything they can comprehend — and redefines everything they know about the afterlife. I’m aiming to release it in Summer 2023.

If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

It’s probably the small contrivances that get my goat. When people trip as they’re being chased, the car won’t start, or suddenly there’s bad cell phone reception. They’re convenient go-to’s and I think we need — and can be — cleverer than that.

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?

The last great book wasn’t a horror, but it was Sally Rooney’s Normal People. It was perfect in its simplicity; it represented the rawest, most honest portrayal of a relationship that I’ve read or seen in years. It also showed the male love interest Connell develop into an emotionally aware young man who, by the end of the book, learns to fluently express himself. It’s rare to see a male protagonist have that kind of growth.

The last disappointment was Stephen King’s The Institute. I’never DNF’d a King book before — I mean, he is the King, after all — but this book didn’t work for me at all. He made peculiar choices to try and somewhat humanise adults that were torturing kids, and spent the first chapter introducing a character that we don’t see again until the final act of the book, by which point I’d forgotten all about him.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?

As writers and creatives generally, I don’t think we are asked enough about our failures. It’s always about the success, but we can’t have that without learning what not to do. We need that kind of dialogue, especially in an age where we hold our favourite authors up as celebrities.

My answer would be that I tried to be too grand and impressive. In earlier drafts I manipulated how time was perceived in the novel. So I was splicing and intersecting flashbacks throughout the present plot, and interweaving future scenes disguised as flashbacks, too. Which could be interesting, but the book was already divided into thirteen parts, each alternating between the three main characters. So that was a disastrous draft, and I had a few beta readers give me some tough — but much needed — criticism for that. I also cut a couple hundred pages of pure filler. I was trying to say too much about every theme imaginable and humanise the smallest characters. I think that was mostly just me telling myself the story in the first draft and being too scared to let go of it all. So I had to learn how to refine the novel back to its fundamental themes and values. Less is always more!

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​Born and raised in Cornwall, England, Terry Kitto was never found without reading a book or penning one of his own. Teaching himself to write screenplays in Sixth Form, he took his creativity to Film School at Falmouth University. There he wrote the first draft of biopic Christopher’s Queen and studied postmodernism in long running television series’, earning a First Class with Honours. He further developed his television writing skills at the University of Salford, with a PGDip in TV and Radio Scriptwriting.
In February 2015 he won the award for Best Writer at the New York 100 Hour Film Contest with the short Can You See Me?  and was shortlisted for the BBC's Writers Room 2016 with comedy-drama Brunswick House.

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Death wasn’t an absolute end, but a further form of being.

Deep within the bowels of an abandoned Cornish mine a covert occult group, known as the Network, protects the living from the dead. Their mediums host a plethora of abilities — from telepathy to astral projection — because of their connection to an energy source called the frequency.

Fifteen-year-old Rasha Abadi and her mother are Syrian refugees granted leave to remain in Gorenn Village. The seaside town sprawls with beaches and idyllic coves, but the last thing Rasha finds there is peace. An impossible shadow visits her nightly and infests her mind with memories of the chaos that she and her mother fled in Syria. When she becomes possessed by the shadow, the Network intervenes to save her.

The shadow’s wrath knows no bounds and orchestrates a string of interconnected possessions across the south coast. Having survived the shadow, Rasha eagerly offers to aid the Network’s investigation. They must all act quickly to unearth its motive before it disrupts the balance between the living and the dead, and forges a new world from the embers of their own reality.

No choice will be easy for Rasha when thwarting a monster means becoming one herself.

The Frequency is a paranormal thriller exploring grief in a world where death is just the beginning and where reality can be rewritten. Fans of Stephen King and James Herbert will enjoy this mind-bending, paranormal thriller with LGBTQ+ and POC characters.

This is book one in The Imprint Quintet series, a five-part saga following a rag-tag group of mediums as they attempt to thwart an otherworldly tyrant from unleashing paranormal terrorism.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?


My name is Kateri Stanley. I’m from the West Midlands, based in the UK. I’ve always been intrigued by the fictional world since I was a kid, falling in love with books, audiobooks and movies. I started writing when I was a kid, penning fanfiction from shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then I started writing my own short stories and in 2015, I began writing my first novel.


This will become my soon to be published debut novel. It’s a sci-fi horror called Forgive Me.


Investigative journalist, Susan ‘Stripe’ McLachlan, is constantly hounded by eager documentarians for interview requests about the Night Scrawler murders. One of the victims of the mysterious serial killer was a member of her own family, her father. At the peak of her career, her services are sought by Isaac Payne who commissions her to write an article for his website. Usually, her projects delve into more uncomfortable, questionable topics, but there’s a deep, almost hauntingly familiar pull about her new client that intrigues her. As she learns more about Isaac, Stripe digs up fresh secrets about the murders, arousing her suspicions. After an awkward confrontation, she wakes up in Isaac’s bed — with a chain around her ankle. Isaac shows her harrowing footage on an old VHS tape. The contents hits close to home…closer than Stripe ever imagined.


It is being published by the indie press house, darkstroke books and will be officially released on Tuesday 20th April 2021. It will be available in ebook and paperback form on Amazon.

Which one of your characters would you least like to meet in real life?

I created a character in Forgive Me called The Lumberjack who is an axe wielding, gas mask wearing anti-hero from the urban legend with the same name. The idea of waking up in the middle of night with him standing at the foot of my bed. Nah. Not good, I’d need a stiff drink to get back to sleep. Haha. 

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?


Music. I always have something playing in my ears when I’m creating. I have music on right now as I’m typing this. I can write with nothing playing if I have to but it’s not the same. Certain songs and soundtracks have helped me reach emotional and poignant moments in my work. After Forgive Me is published, I will be releasing the playlist on my website and social media.


The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?

The word “horror” used to evoke a gory, blood and guts vibe to me when I was younger. I’m not particularly good with gore. I tried to play Outlast and I chickened out after ten minutes. I just couldn’t do it, haha! I lean towards the paranormal/supernatural and psychological horrors like Insidious and The Conjuring. I think how we can break these is by creating more subgenres. Horror isn’t just about a guy with pins in his face.

A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years?

I’ve never heard of a horror movement before but I have seen a change in the response to self-published and indie writers over the years especially in the horror genre, there seems to be more respect. I’ve been reading mostly indie work lately and I’ve been super impressed with the wonderful stories I’ve been introduced to.

Given the dark, violent and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it?

I think people love to be scared and we love the adrenaline rush when it happens. Why do people go on scary rides? Why do people walk through horror mazes? Why do we like to watch a horror movie with the lights off? It’s the feeling, as if we’re in the story itself.

What, if anything, is currently missing from the horror genre?


I wouldn’t say anything is particularly missing. There’s a lot more of it nowadays and it’s in different subgenres which I think is great.

What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off?


I’m a big fan of indie writer, Dawn Hosmer. She wrote a novel called Bits & Pieces which is a psychological thriller. It is about a woman called Tessa who sees flashes when she touches someone. Red = pain, yellow = a premonition, blue = a pleasant memory etc. Life for her isn’t peachy and she wears gloves when she goes out to prevent the flashes. She takes part in a search party for a missing university student and Tessa receives a lightning bolt flash and begins to see images of murdered women. I’ve heard she’s working on a sequel; I’m looking forward to reading it!

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?

I enjoy reading positive reviews of my work and I also enjoy reading constructive criticism too because it helps me learn and broaden my knowledge. I wouldn’t say I’ve had a negative review before. I did have someone say that my writing made them comfort eat. Haha. If you’re putting your work out there for all the world to see, negative reviews are going to happen. What I’m trying to say with that example is, try and not let negative reviews get you down or stop you from working on your craft. Everybody has different tastes.

What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?

I find the writing of the first draft hard because you’re creating something completely from scratch. As Quentin Tarantino has said when penning a screenplay, it’s like climbing a mountain. You’ve got to start at the bottom and work your way up to the top. Some may disagree but I find editing actually easier, it’s so therapeutic to enhance, correct and make your work better.   

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?

I think it’s good to write about real life issues in fiction or base characters or situations on experiences you’ve been through. However, I would not touch disturbing topics like incest in my work.


Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years?
I’ve definitely grown as a writer by writing a lot more and reading different genres to get myself out of my comfort zone. I also challenged myself by putting my work out for critiquing. When I was in my early 20’s, a friend of mine recommended the website Wattpad.com to me and when I was writing early drafts of Forgive Me, I received wonderful feedback from readers on there. I’ve also written in different mediums, for audio productions and short film screenplays. Some of those projects have turned into novels, one of them I will be working on very soon.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?

Write what is interesting to you. Write what you want to read.


Which of your characters is your favourite?

Stripe McLachlan from my debut novel Forgive Me is one of my favourite characters I’ve created so far. When you meet her at the start of the story, she’s been through some pretty bad stuff but she’s able to present herself in a professional manner when she’s working and she’s able to have a laugh and take the mickey out of herself too, despite what she’s been through.

Which of your books best represents you?

My first original idea for a story called Hard Way Home came to me in a dream when I was a teenager. It was about a woman stuck in a dead-end job who is secretly planning her suicide when she hears that one of her favourite musicians has gone missing from hospital. She leaves work one evening and is hassled by two men and then rescued by a hooded stranger, who claims not to be the infamous lead singer but looks exactly like him. The atmosphere in the book and Jackie (the lead character) is hugely based on me and how I felt about myself and the world during a depressive spiral. When my partner and I were first dating, they read the story and knew straight away Jackie was me! Hard Way Home is available to read for free on my website.

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?


Here’s the first couple of sentences from the opening chapter of Forgive Me:


“I see the click and switch when you turn off the television. I hear your heartbeat when you climb up the stairs. I can feel your soft bare feet on the carpet as you walk into your bedroom.”


Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?

The latest short story I wrote was called Shelter about three young adults who are stuck in a sports hall during a toxic storm. One of them is a notorious bully, the other an ex-bully and the third, one of their victims. It’s filled with tension and despair, addressing depression and mental health issues in young adults. I’d call it a sci-fi drama. The story is available to read on my website for free if you want to give it a peep. One of my beta readers said I should turn it into a novel.


I’m currently working on a modern-day mystical thriller that was inspired after watching a really upsetting documentary called The Cove about the killing of dolphins. I’ve nearly finished the first draft.


If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

One that springs to my mind is to be a villain, you must be disfigured or ugly to be frightening. I’m not a fan of that cliché at all.

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?


Dawn’s book that I mentioned previously. I recently read a dark romance (which I won’t name), it sadly didn’t get my blood flowing. I liked the premise but the execution of it could’ve been better. The ending was a real mood killer.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?

I’ve never been asked ‘Why do you write?’ And my response is: because I need to. I think a lot of writers would say the same thing. It’s drilled into our being isn’t it. Writing is a form of therapy to me, a type of self-medicating. I’ve gotten through some really tough situations and writing helped. I wrote a short story a while ago during a horrific break up and from doing that, I was able to reevaluate my situation and understand what the hell had happened.

GNOH: Part of the longevity and success of the Charlie Parker books is connected to the fact that they are not typical detective novels. Often there is no traditional ‘murderer’ and once we get beyond the ‘Travelling Man’ in book one or the vicious serial killer in Dark Hollow (book 2) the books fan out into much wider plots and do not have the major ‘reveals’ you might associate with detective stories. If you were to look back at the early novels in the series, were you aware that Charlie Parker was moving away from the traditional detective novel? Or did it just develop that way over time as the plots unfolded?

JOHN: Well, traditional mystery novels always had a very ambivalent relationship, at best, with the supernatural, so the Parker books start out from a point that is slightly at one remove from the tradition and then grow increasingly distant from it.  Then again, the connection between the mystery novel and the supernatural is more convoluted than the traditionalists would have us believe, the main point of contact being the common roots of the two genres in the Gothic.

I think, as I progressed, I came to understand that I could experiment and readers would follow, but the experimentation had to be gradual.  Those early books retain a certain ambiguity about the supernatural elements – they could simply be manifestations of Parker’s guilt and grief – which is slowly dispensed with as the series progresses.  That was entirely deliberate.  I suppose it was a case of saying to the reader, “Okay, you accept A, so it’s not too much to ask you also to accept B.  Are you comfortable with B?  Right, how about C?” I think I have some readers who, had they been told at the start where the novels might lead them, might have been reluctant to pick them up on the grounds that they had a particular conception of the mystery novel, one that didn’t allow for the intrusion of the anti-rational.

But some of the books are more traditional than others.  The Dirty South, for example, is a very traditional kind of thriller.  I wanted to see what would happen if I set aside all – or most – of the elements with which I as a writer, and the reader, had become comfortable.  Every book should be an experiment.  Each should try something new.  Otherwise, I can’t progress, and I can’t learn, and the result will be that the series atrophies.

GNOH: I am particular when it comes to reading a series in the correct order and whilst reading Charlie Parker often wondered how a casual reader might find being parachuted into random parts of the series? For example, A Bag of Bones (book 17), is a direct sequel to its predecessor and new readers may well be perplexed by talk of ‘Not Gods’ and ‘Principal Backers’. Which books might you identify as good entry points for those readers who may not want to start at book one?

JOHN: I’m not a purist at all.  Like a lot of writers, I suspect, I find it hard to recommend the earlier books because I hope I’ve at least improved slightly since then.  Then again, it’s a source of profound relief to me when someone comes to the series for the first time and finds that those first novels still stand up.  I like The Black Angel, The Wolf in Winter, and The Dirty South.  They’re natural starting points for a new reader and are almost deliberately constructed to be so.

GNOH: I often recommend Charlie Parker to readers in the horror community, one fellow reviewer (who shall remain anonymous!) felt that you provided too much background detail which was not pertinent to the main plot. Although this opinion is not something I necessarily agree with, but it’s an interesting point, what do you say to this observation? Or is it just a matter of your particular writing style?

JOHN: It’s a stylistic decision.  I fully understand that there are readers who just want a writer to get on with the main plot, but I’ve always set out to create interweaving narratives, and I don’t subscribe to the idea of minor characters.  What we’re glimpsing in a novel is a kind of Venn diagram, the shaded point at which a series of circles intersect, and each of those circles represents the universe of a single character.  Were one to shift the emphasis slightly, like Tom Stoppard does in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the book would be about a completely different character who is the centre of his or her own universe.  I’m also very conscious of constructing what feels like a real, lived-in world, because otherwise the intrusion of the otherworldly simply won’t work.  I like the idea of creating a world in which the reader can lose themselves, and that detailed world extends now over twenty novels, give or take, and some short stories and novellas.

GNOH: My favourite detectives I previously mentioned, including Wallander, Rebus and Bosch get more convincing as their series develops and their cases more complex as the author builds on the earlier cases and developing characters. The same can definitely be said for Charlie Parker, no offence, but I doubt anybody would name the first book, Every Dead Thing as the strongest title in the series. My favourite four Parker novels would be, in no particular order: The Wolf in Winter (12), A Song of Shadows (13), A Tide or Torment (14), and A Book of Bones (17), all of which are later entries in the sequence. Looking back, what are your favourites, or could you pick out any particularly strong groupings of books?

JOHN: I think, or hope, I’ve got better from The Wolf in Winter on.  That book marked a shift in my writing.  But he was also an important book for me stylistically.  It’s a piece of literary fiction, but its use of dialogue and white space influenced the Parker books in turn.  They’re all products of the same imagination, so perhaps that’s not too surprising.

GNOH: I’ve read that the next Parker book, The Nameless Ones, published later this year will be a ‘Louis and Angel’ novel where I presume Charlie has a support role. This was also the case in The Reapers (book 7) which covered a lot of background on these two important characters. Have readers been generally supportive of these occasional departures from the main Parker storyline? Could you tell us a little bit about it?

JOHN: Those two characters started out as something approaching light relief, as well as providing readers with a glimpse of a different side to Parker, one that was likeable, even admirable.  As the books have gone on, Angel and Louis have deepened along with my understanding of them.  It just happened that The Nameless Ones was better suited to them than to Parker, although I’m sure, had I wanted to, I could have made him a major character in the story rather than someone who makes an appearance only for a couple of chapters.   The book does tie very much into the larger narrative, though, and Parker’s dead daughter is arguably more important to the story than he is.

GNOH: Which author, living or dead, would you most like to notice reading a Charlie Parker novel on a train?

JOHN: I wonder if Ross Macdonald would have enjoyed them.  He was a big influence on me – not so much stylistically, but more in terms of the philosophy of the books and their conception of empathy.  I suspect he might not have liked them, but who knows?  Actually, in a recent John Sandford novel Virgil Flowers has a conversation with a fellow policeman about Every Dead Thing, and they both compliment the book.  That meant a lot to me as I have been reading Sandford since long before I was published, and I think he’s a hugely underrated writer.

It also made up for a much longer exchange in an Ed McBain novel many years ago, in which Meyer Meyer and Fat Ollie Weeks are absolutely horrible about me and one of my books.  In my first books, and some subsequent ones, I namechecked writers and characters I’d loved as a doffing of the cap.  One of those was McBain, who was my introduction to mystery fiction, so there’s a character called Fat Ollie Watts.  McBain, who was very sensitive to perceived slights, never mind plagiarism, took it amiss.  Later the concept of someone paying tribute was explained to him, and we had a pleasant chat in which he kind of apologized.  I suppose what I’m trying to say is that if someone you admire reads your work, you take your chances…

GNOH: John, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the site. I hope you enjoy the accompanying article which ranks the novels. Apologies to those at the bottom end of the scale, they are all still worth five stars on Amazon or Good Reads! The best of luck with The Nameless Ones, I cannot wait to find out what Angel and Louis are up to but am sure Charlie will be lurking in the background to save them from harm!
​
Tony Jones