Another free to enter contest exclusive to Bibliophilia members ...
for a free signed copy of Harry Hughes’s debut novel:
The Bait Shack
Unemployed whiz kid Dale Cooles struggles to save his marriage and his sanity when his previously charmed life’s turned topsy turvy by a cadre of killers and clowns.
Dale and wife Lacy – daughter of an eccentric but filthy rich Tennessee lumber magnate – unwittingly adopt into their domestic wrangle Twist, the brain-damaged orphan, and Lieutenant Revels, the beat-weary yet determined conservation officer seeking revenge for Lacy’s unscrupulous boss’s part in the mysterious extinction of rare birds on a prime piece of real estate.
And then there are the other extinctions ... the human ones.
In the parade of offbeat characters in Hughes’ ingenious and ’90s-set street smart black comedy of crime, we meet cutthroat businessman Henry Meredith, out for what he can get, psycho hitman Connie Jablonski, out for what he can hurt, mobster Johnny Avalino, greedy to enhance the value of his beach-front property by any means, Nancy Littlecrow, the shameless and cagey Native American attorney who gives new meaning to the term ‘Indian Affairs’, Seymour L. Bram, the retired and retiring Air Force Major suffering from chronic depression and delusions of easy money, Duncan Slochbauer, the slovenly and obsessed amateur producer of grisly news videos ...
And we don’t quite meet poor Karen Kern and the faceless others who might have crossed the path of a crazed and kinky serial killer nobody seems to have noticed lurking somewhere in Hughes’ uniquely colourful dramatis personae.
Harry Hughes takes noir to a new level. Wry, classy, compelling, and utterly hysterical. Think Iain Pears crossed with Martin Amis. Dale and Lacy make an endearing team of anti-heroes in a world showing its true colours.Magdalena Ball. The Compulsive Reader
A stunning first novel. An up-to-date take on the classic American murder mystery. Harry Hughes tells his suspenseful story in quick-paced and colorful prose and creates dozens of sharply drawn characters, including Dale Cooles, an unforgettable anti-hero in the Philip Marlowe tradition.Michael Lydon. Author. Co-founder of Rolling Stone Magazine
All BeWrite Books are available from: BeWrite Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Angus & Robertson and other online booksellers and to order from high street bookshops.
Print ISBN: 978-1-905202-92-8
eBook ISBN: 978-1-905202-93-5
Price: £7.99
Pages: 264
All you have to do to win a signed copy is to drop an email with the subject "BiblioContest" to win[at]bibliophilia.org with an answer to this simple question:
Lacy’s unscrupulous boss is under investigation by Lieutenant Revels for breaking the laws of:
a) Bourbon whiskey distilling?
b) Wildlife conservation?
c) Gravity?
The winning email address will be picked up from the virtual hat on November 30, 2008.
Unemployed whiz kid Dale Coles struggles to save his marriage and his sanity when his previously charmed life is turned topsy turvy by a cadre of killers and clowns.
Dale and wife Lacy – daughter of an eccentric but filthy rich Tennessee lumber magnate – unwittingly adopt into their domestic wrangle Twist, the brain-damaged orphan, and Lieutenant Revels, the beat-weary yet determined conservation officer seeking revenge for Lacy’s unscrupulous boss’s part in the mysterious extinction of rare birds on a prime piece of real estate.
And then there are the other extinctions ... the human ones.
In the parade of offbeat characters in Hughes’ ingenious and ’90s-set street smart black comedy of crime, we meet cutthroat businessman Henry Meredith, out for what he can get, psycho hitman Connie Jablonski, out for what he can hurt, mobster Johnny Avalino, greedy to enhance the value of his beach-front property by any means, Nancy Littlecrow, the shameless and cagey Native American attorney who gives new meaning to the term ‘Indian Affairs’, Seymour L. Bram, the retired and retiring Air Force Major suffering from chronic depression and delusions of easy money, Duncan Slochbauer, the slovenly and obsessed amateur producer of grisly news videos ...
And we don’t quite meet poor Karen Kern and the faceless others who might have crossed the path of a crazed and kinky serial killer nobody seems to have noticed lurking somewhere in Hughes’ uniquely colourful dramatis personae.
Harry Hughes takes noir to a new level. Wry, classy, compelling, and utterly hysterical. Think Iain Pears crossed with Martin Amis. Dale and Lacy make an endearing team of anti-heroes in a world showing its true colours. Magdalena Ball. The Compulsive Reader
Last Flash Challenge winner: Another Man’s Treasure by orangedream. Congratulations orangedream!
Another Man’s Treasure
Below watercolour skies he sits content on tatty plastic sofa – a square peg in this dump-it-get-a-new-one age.
Overhead, a flock of seagulls shoot the breeze. One by one they land, establish pecking order; feathers fly before they dine on whatever they can scavenge.
Under graffiti-daubed, grey arches, his abode; an inside-out kind of home with river frontage.
With its antique tilt-topped table, a welcome refugee from some burnt-out stately mansion, a clapped-out iron framed mangle, circa 1953
and a cello with no strings. Borough Market just a stone’s throw away; pigs’ trotters, fish-heads, his for the taking when the stallholder turns a blind eye.
Under frosty, phosphorescent skies, needs must he gets wrapped up in the news; The Telegraph, The Independent, whatever he can find. He’s not fussy.
A fingernail moon sails high above Tate Modern, spawning images – transient, bizarre; shapes and shadows fall on ochreous walls. Abandoned bathtubs, sinks and stoves,
ever growing hoards of trash, throw a myriad of patterns. Tin trays clatter-crash – the vermin scatter
as the gaffer on the dump sets to work, sifting, searching, discarding nothing. One man’s waste is another man’s treasure.
Behind him, the flicker of a fire … a mountain of detritus, burning bright … ever brighter.
(5 / 5) (3 votes) 
Download Now
Print
Email
