Rat Run Released!

And Rat Run is finally out there. The end of Lenny's journey that began in Rat's Tale. Who'd have guessed my bad-boy would come so far? If you're curious to find out how it finishes, feel free to check it out....Amazon UK, Amazon US or other links here. Reviews always welcome!

Lenny’s been released early from prison. He’s got a normal and boring job, and he’s living a normal and boring life in a small flat in Liverpool. But Lenny’s never done normal. Or boring. Everything comes with a price and the local cops have already been in touch, expecting him to provide intelligence about his old life in London. 

Then an email sends him racing back down south. It’s not the best idea he’s ever had, but it’s Becky who’s contacted him and she’s always been his weak spot. Becky’s teenage brother is missing, and Lenny knows that heading to London to search for him means breaking the terms of his prison licence, risking his freedom and maybe even his life. 

The search for Becky’s brother takes Lenny into dangerous territory from his past, he’s got the cops on his back again, and he has to decide whether this new life is worth what it’s going to cost. 

This thriller is set six months after Ratline and contains adult material. 

Rat Run

And the muse awakens. Scribbling (OK, typing) madly these past few days as my fingers can't keep up with my brain. This is what I just love about writing - when it all comes together and I feel like I have a foot in each of two different worlds, when I'm living and dreaming the book, when I'm literally scribbling with a pen on odd bits of paper at home, in the car, at work and trying to keep up with my imagination. When you get that little frisson of excitement on reading something back that you don't actually remember writing because it happened so fast ...

So I thought I'd better get me a cover, since I'm really not that far off finishing now. What do you reckon? Same model again as I have on all my Rat books - but since this one starts out in Liverpool, I've got a little Liver Bird in too! Should be out by Christmas, if not earlier, but depends on how long the editing takes!

I'm stalling on my latest book. Rat Run is the third in the trilogy which is Lenny's story - Lenny Dixon being the bad-boy we were introduced to in the first trilogy. I was fascinated by him and wanted to explore him further to find out what makes him tick. It's been a bumpy ride with several surprises along the way, but the end of this story will be the right time to say goodbye. And I'm sad. This isn't fantasy, and I'm not leaving a world behind, but I'm leaving my world - my little fictional bubble I created over 20 years ago when I first heard Michael's story in my head.

Will I go back again? I don't know. Whilst I've written series books, they're not police procedurals and there's no cop with a different case to solve in each book. I enjoy reading them, but that's not how I write. And I refuse to churn out rehashed plots over and over again, so this really is likely to be the last visit I make to this world.

It's funny how we get to know characters as real people, isn't it? Both writing and reading - the people come alive in a good story and you start wondering where they go and what they do when they wander off the page. Or am I just weird?

So nearly 30,000 words into this latest book and I think I've got a plot now. I hope. I just have to talk myself into finishing it. Saying goodbye is hard and I wonder if that's why my subconscious is playing all sorts of games with me and refusing to co-operate.

Rat Run

Lenny dropped the widget-thingy-whatever-the-fuck-it-is for the third time, threw the plastic box on the warehouse floor in a fit of temper and kicked the shelving. “Fuck!” The metal shelves rattled and something fell off one end.

He took a deep breath. It was just a job, like normal people had. Real life.

“You OK?” One of his work colleagues came round the corner. “Drop something?”

What does it fucking look like? Lenny swore again – under his breath this time – and picked up the box. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not really feeling the love for this, are you?” The kid grinned.

Lenny wanted to smack him. “Is it that obvious?” Could they not have found him a job that didn’t involve the fiddly sorting of impossibly small objects? His right hand simply didn’t have the dexterity for this sort of thing – not since wannabe gangster Mick Carlotti had crushed it in the door of a shipping container a year ago.

The terms of his prison licence required him to work how, where and when his Offender Manager said. He’d tried arguing with her and got precisely nowhere, so he was stuck in this crappy dead-end job for at least the next year and quite possibly forever, until he could convince both her and Darwin that he was completely rehabilitated and reintegrated into the community. Like I was ever a part of the community in the first place? Jesus fucking Christ.