Stephen Leather's Blog, page 7
March 5, 2014
The 11th Spider Shepherd book
Whew, I've just finished writing White Lies - the 11th Spider Shepherd novel. It came in at about 108,000 words, which is about 400 pages and a good length for a thriller.
I had a blast writing it and don't think it will need much in the way of editing. We'll see!
Unusually, the cover isn't ready. Publication is set for the first week in August so I'm expecting the cover sooner rather than later!
In the meantime, I'm working on two more Spider Shepherd short stories - Narrow Escape and Personal Protection. Watch this space!
I had a blast writing it and don't think it will need much in the way of editing. We'll see!
Unusually, the cover isn't ready. Publication is set for the first week in August so I'm expecting the cover sooner rather than later!
In the meantime, I'm working on two more Spider Shepherd short stories - Narrow Escape and Personal Protection. Watch this space!
February 14, 2014
Thanks To The Saint!
The 32nd Saint book will be re-published later this month by Mulholland Books - Thanks To The Saint. It's a collection of Saint short stories written by the great Leslie Charteris and edited by Ian Dickerson - and has an introduction by my good self! You can pre-order the paperback BY CLICKING HERE
As I explain in the introduction, I've always been a huge fan of the Saint. This is what I wrote:
Like most young readers back in the Sixties and Seventies, I was introduced to The Saint through TV – in my case the black and white show starring the single eyebrow-raising pre-Bond Roger Moore and his very cool white Volvo.I bought my first second hand Saint book from Altrincham market in South Manchester – The Saint Versus Scotland Yard. I was eight, and I think I was simply too young for The Saint. I made several stabs at reading it but couldn’t get beyond a few pages. The books are, after all, for adults. But back then the choice was either the likes of Enid Blyton or full-blown adult books. There were no wizard schools or junior James Bonds, no lovelorn vampires dating High School girls, there were kids books and there were adult books; the so-called YA (young adult) market had yet to be created.I went back to Charteris two years later when I was ten and it all clicked into place. I was hooked. Over the next year I went to Altrincham market every weekend and would exchange a handful of Superman and Batman comics from my treasured collection. Now financially I almost certainly did swap the family cow for a handful of beans. The second-hand books have long since gone and the comics have probably increased in value a hundred fold, but I’ve never regretted the trade.One of the reasons I love Thanks To The Saint is that it was written in 1956 – the year that I was born. Whenever I pick up my copy and see that date, I feel a connection – as I came kicking and screaming into the world, Leslie Charteris was celebrating finishing his latest book and planning the next one. And I love the fact that it’s a collection of short stories. It’s an oft-repeated fact in the publishing business that collections of short stories don’t sell as well as novels. But as a youngster I always preferred the short stories because I could read a complete story before bedtime, and yes it was the cliché of using a torch under the covers so that my parents wouldn’t know that I was still awake.Leslie Charteris took me to a world I never knew existed, thought to be honest it’s a world that probably never did exist. I didn’t just want to read about the Saint or watch the TV show - I wanted to BE the Saint. More than anything. Seriously. I wanted to travel the world and have adventures. I remember designing a stickman logo based on my initials and stamping it on all my books. And as I read my way through all the stories, I tried to work out how I could become The Saint.And therein lies the problem – the lack of a backstory. I could never work out how Simon Templar became The Saint. Did he go to university? Did he ever have a real job? Where did acquire his criminal skills that came in so useful when he was being shot at or chased or having to use his fists to defend himself. And - more importantly to the young me in Manchester who rarely had two pennies to rub together - where did Simon Templar get his money from? How did he fund his jet-setting lifestyle?I never found out, of course. There isn’t much of a backstory in the novels. The only attempt made to explain The Saint’s beginnings came in the awful Val Kilmer movie of the same name, but that can safely be ignored.The Saint came from nowhere, which was very frustrating for the pre-teen me that was trying to map out his own life. The Saint never had a paper round, never stacked shelves in a supermarket, never worked in a garage or picked potatoes on a farm. Deciding what subject to study at university was a struggle – what would The Saint have studied? Safecracking, fisticuffs and seducing beautiful women wasn’t an option. I settled for Biochemistry.Years later I realized that not only didn’t The Saint exist, he couldn’t exist. He was as fictional as Harry Potter and Hogwarts. Anyone poking fun at the police in the way that Simon Templar does would be fitted up and behind bars quicker than you could say ‘Police And Criminal Evidence Act’. And you can’t steal from gangsters, or make them look stupid. Gangsters kill people and intimidate witnesses and often get away with it.Most of The Saint books that I read in the Sixties and Seventies had been written many years earlier – some of them in the Thirties. But they didn’t seem dated then and the stories work just as well now.Take this from Thanks To The Saint - "Don't ever get one thing wrong," he said. "I never robbed anyone who wasn't a thief or a blackguard, although they might have been clever enough to stay within the law. I've killed people too, but never anyone that the world wasn't a better place without. Sometimes people seem to forget it, since I got to be too well known and had to give up some of the simple methods I used to get away with when I was more anonymous, but my name used to stand for a kind of justice, and I haven't changed."That is such a cool paragraph, a paragraph that could slot into the latest Jack Reacher novel - or indeed any of my thrillers – and not look out of place.Some things date, of course. I’m not sure if I’d get away with using a word like “blackguard”. Cars don’t have running boards any more. The Saint fights like English gentleman, with his fists and never hitting a man when he was down. Simon Templar beds women with gleeful abandon with no thought of reaching for a condom. He’s from a time without mobile phones, DNA tests or CCTV.I love the fact that Simon Templar smokes – and enjoys smoking. One of my continuing characters – Jack Nightingale – is a big fan of cigarettes and in many ways that’s a homage to The Saint. I vividly remember how The Saint escaped poisonous gas in a cellar by filling a wine bottle with soil and breathing through it. Would it work? My scientific training says probably not but I have tucked the information away just in case I ever find myself trapped in a basement full of poisonous gas.
Looking back at my life so far, I just realized that in many ways I did get to get the Saint’s life. I work when I want to work, and to be honest writing thrillers isn’t a hardship. I can pretty much fly into any major city and call up someone I know and take them to dinner. I’ve fought in karate tournaments and crawled through the tunnels used by the VC outside Saigon. I drink with cops and villains and spies and movie stars. I’ve been threatened by the police in five countries and been slammed against a nightclub wall by a major drugs dealer who thought I was asking him too many questions. I can sail a boat and fly a plane (and have jumped out of a few.) I can scuba dive and I’ve fired guns and thrown the odd hand grenade. I’ve sailed halfway around the world on a cargo ship for no other reason than I wanted to. I’ve climbed into cars with strangers and driven off to bars that I’ve never heard off. I’ve been threatened by gangsters and I’ve had a gun pointed at me and a broken glass thrust at my throat. In many ways I’ve had the life I’ve had because of Leslie Charteris and the books that he wrote. Admittedly I’ve never sat alone in a casino and been approached by a beautiful woman who needed my help but hey, there’s still time.
As I explain in the introduction, I've always been a huge fan of the Saint. This is what I wrote:
Like most young readers back in the Sixties and Seventies, I was introduced to The Saint through TV – in my case the black and white show starring the single eyebrow-raising pre-Bond Roger Moore and his very cool white Volvo.I bought my first second hand Saint book from Altrincham market in South Manchester – The Saint Versus Scotland Yard. I was eight, and I think I was simply too young for The Saint. I made several stabs at reading it but couldn’t get beyond a few pages. The books are, after all, for adults. But back then the choice was either the likes of Enid Blyton or full-blown adult books. There were no wizard schools or junior James Bonds, no lovelorn vampires dating High School girls, there were kids books and there were adult books; the so-called YA (young adult) market had yet to be created.I went back to Charteris two years later when I was ten and it all clicked into place. I was hooked. Over the next year I went to Altrincham market every weekend and would exchange a handful of Superman and Batman comics from my treasured collection. Now financially I almost certainly did swap the family cow for a handful of beans. The second-hand books have long since gone and the comics have probably increased in value a hundred fold, but I’ve never regretted the trade.One of the reasons I love Thanks To The Saint is that it was written in 1956 – the year that I was born. Whenever I pick up my copy and see that date, I feel a connection – as I came kicking and screaming into the world, Leslie Charteris was celebrating finishing his latest book and planning the next one. And I love the fact that it’s a collection of short stories. It’s an oft-repeated fact in the publishing business that collections of short stories don’t sell as well as novels. But as a youngster I always preferred the short stories because I could read a complete story before bedtime, and yes it was the cliché of using a torch under the covers so that my parents wouldn’t know that I was still awake.Leslie Charteris took me to a world I never knew existed, thought to be honest it’s a world that probably never did exist. I didn’t just want to read about the Saint or watch the TV show - I wanted to BE the Saint. More than anything. Seriously. I wanted to travel the world and have adventures. I remember designing a stickman logo based on my initials and stamping it on all my books. And as I read my way through all the stories, I tried to work out how I could become The Saint.And therein lies the problem – the lack of a backstory. I could never work out how Simon Templar became The Saint. Did he go to university? Did he ever have a real job? Where did acquire his criminal skills that came in so useful when he was being shot at or chased or having to use his fists to defend himself. And - more importantly to the young me in Manchester who rarely had two pennies to rub together - where did Simon Templar get his money from? How did he fund his jet-setting lifestyle?I never found out, of course. There isn’t much of a backstory in the novels. The only attempt made to explain The Saint’s beginnings came in the awful Val Kilmer movie of the same name, but that can safely be ignored.The Saint came from nowhere, which was very frustrating for the pre-teen me that was trying to map out his own life. The Saint never had a paper round, never stacked shelves in a supermarket, never worked in a garage or picked potatoes on a farm. Deciding what subject to study at university was a struggle – what would The Saint have studied? Safecracking, fisticuffs and seducing beautiful women wasn’t an option. I settled for Biochemistry.Years later I realized that not only didn’t The Saint exist, he couldn’t exist. He was as fictional as Harry Potter and Hogwarts. Anyone poking fun at the police in the way that Simon Templar does would be fitted up and behind bars quicker than you could say ‘Police And Criminal Evidence Act’. And you can’t steal from gangsters, or make them look stupid. Gangsters kill people and intimidate witnesses and often get away with it.Most of The Saint books that I read in the Sixties and Seventies had been written many years earlier – some of them in the Thirties. But they didn’t seem dated then and the stories work just as well now.Take this from Thanks To The Saint - "Don't ever get one thing wrong," he said. "I never robbed anyone who wasn't a thief or a blackguard, although they might have been clever enough to stay within the law. I've killed people too, but never anyone that the world wasn't a better place without. Sometimes people seem to forget it, since I got to be too well known and had to give up some of the simple methods I used to get away with when I was more anonymous, but my name used to stand for a kind of justice, and I haven't changed."That is such a cool paragraph, a paragraph that could slot into the latest Jack Reacher novel - or indeed any of my thrillers – and not look out of place.Some things date, of course. I’m not sure if I’d get away with using a word like “blackguard”. Cars don’t have running boards any more. The Saint fights like English gentleman, with his fists and never hitting a man when he was down. Simon Templar beds women with gleeful abandon with no thought of reaching for a condom. He’s from a time without mobile phones, DNA tests or CCTV.I love the fact that Simon Templar smokes – and enjoys smoking. One of my continuing characters – Jack Nightingale – is a big fan of cigarettes and in many ways that’s a homage to The Saint. I vividly remember how The Saint escaped poisonous gas in a cellar by filling a wine bottle with soil and breathing through it. Would it work? My scientific training says probably not but I have tucked the information away just in case I ever find myself trapped in a basement full of poisonous gas.
Looking back at my life so far, I just realized that in many ways I did get to get the Saint’s life. I work when I want to work, and to be honest writing thrillers isn’t a hardship. I can pretty much fly into any major city and call up someone I know and take them to dinner. I’ve fought in karate tournaments and crawled through the tunnels used by the VC outside Saigon. I drink with cops and villains and spies and movie stars. I’ve been threatened by the police in five countries and been slammed against a nightclub wall by a major drugs dealer who thought I was asking him too many questions. I can sail a boat and fly a plane (and have jumped out of a few.) I can scuba dive and I’ve fired guns and thrown the odd hand grenade. I’ve sailed halfway around the world on a cargo ship for no other reason than I wanted to. I’ve climbed into cars with strangers and driven off to bars that I’ve never heard off. I’ve been threatened by gangsters and I’ve had a gun pointed at me and a broken glass thrust at my throat. In many ways I’ve had the life I’ve had because of Leslie Charteris and the books that he wrote. Admittedly I’ve never sat alone in a casino and been approached by a beautiful woman who needed my help but hey, there’s still time.
November 27, 2013
The New Inspector Zhang Short Story
I have just published the latest Inspector Zhang short story - Inspector Zhang and the Island of the Dead.
It's set on the island of Sentosa, which I've visited several times. It's full of fun places, including the Universal Studious. It's another locked room mystery, where Inspector Zhang is called to a murder scene where a doctor has been stabbed in a locked room. I had great fun writing it, though I have been struggling with the flu for the past couple of days. Even dosed up on Lemsip Max Cold and Flu tablets I was still able to work!
You can buy Inspector Zhang and the Island of the Dead for the Kindle in the UK - HERE
And you can buy it on the Kindle in the US - HERE
It's set on the island of Sentosa, which I've visited several times. It's full of fun places, including the Universal Studious. It's another locked room mystery, where Inspector Zhang is called to a murder scene where a doctor has been stabbed in a locked room. I had great fun writing it, though I have been struggling with the flu for the past couple of days. Even dosed up on Lemsip Max Cold and Flu tablets I was still able to work!You can buy Inspector Zhang and the Island of the Dead for the Kindle in the UK - HERE
And you can buy it on the Kindle in the US - HERE
November 13, 2013
Spider Shepherd Short Stories
The four Spider Shepherd short stories that I published on Amazon and Smashwords are doing amazingly well - all four are in the Top 10 of the War category in the Kindle store in the UK.
If you want too read them, it's probably best to start with Natural Selection which explains how Shepherd got his nickname during the jungle phase of SAS selection.
You can buy it in the US Kindle store BY CLICKING HERE
And in the UK Kindle store BY CLICKING HERE
At present I'm working on the brand new full-length Spider Shepherd novel, the 11th, which will probably be called White Knight. Hopefully it'll be on the shelves in the summer of next year!
If you want too read them, it's probably best to start with Natural Selection which explains how Shepherd got his nickname during the jungle phase of SAS selection.
You can buy it in the US Kindle store BY CLICKING HERE
And in the UK Kindle store BY CLICKING HERE
At present I'm working on the brand new full-length Spider Shepherd novel, the 11th, which will probably be called White Knight. Hopefully it'll be on the shelves in the summer of next year!
November 3, 2013
Rough Diamonds - the new Spider Shepherd SAS short story
I have just put a new Spider Shepherd SAS short story on the Kindle and Smashwords. The story is Rough Diamonds, an action-packed tale drawn from Spider's SAS days in war-torn Sierra Leone.
I had great fun writing it - the SAS stories give me a chance to show where Spider came from and what made him the man he is. It also gives me a chance to introduce other characters who will reappear in later books. There is a terrific MI6 operative - Jonathan Parker - in Rough Diamonds and he will be in the next Spider novel.
You can buy Rough Diamonds in the UK - HERE
And in the US - HERE
I'm going to take a short break from writing Spider Shepherd short stories as I have to start work on the new Spider Shepherd full length novel. Though I am working on a Jack Nightingale short story as we speak!
I had great fun writing it - the SAS stories give me a chance to show where Spider came from and what made him the man he is. It also gives me a chance to introduce other characters who will reappear in later books. There is a terrific MI6 operative - Jonathan Parker - in Rough Diamonds and he will be in the next Spider novel.
You can buy Rough Diamonds in the UK - HERE
And in the US - HERE
I'm going to take a short break from writing Spider Shepherd short stories as I have to start work on the new Spider Shepherd full length novel. Though I am working on a Jack Nightingale short story as we speak!
October 30, 2013
Lastnight is done and dusted!
Lastnight - the fifth Jack Nightingale novel - is done and dusted. I signed off on the line edit yesterday which means it's now off to the printers! There was surprisingly little to do edit-wise, a few hours work at most. I'm always surprised at professional writers who have to spend weeks rewriting. I figure it's much better to get it right the first time and so I am constantly self-editing in my head as I write. I quite often delete a paragraph I've just written if I feel it wasn't right. I've never seen the point of saying that a book is finished but that it's a first draft. "And now the real work starts" is a common refrain from writers after the first draft is done, but me, I'd rather get it right the first time!
The story was fun to write - even though it has a pretty gory plot line with lots of Goths being murdered in London. And it was great to research, I spent quite a lot of time in Goth hangouts in London and have become a serious fan of a bar called Garlic and Shots in Soho. You can visit their website HERE
The cover was designed several months ago, and I like it a lot.
Lastnight is the first of my books to be edited by Oliver Johnson, who also edits John Grisham in the UK. He lives south of the river which is helpful and he spotted several errors I'd made in describing Clapham! Who knew that the windmill had gone from the Common? Well, Oliver did!
Publication is set for January 16. I'm about to write a Jack Nightingale short story which I hope will be fun. Then I'm getting started on the new Spider Shepherd book. Busy, busy, busy!
Lastnight is already available on pre-order on Amazon - YOU CAN PRE-ORDER HERE
The story was fun to write - even though it has a pretty gory plot line with lots of Goths being murdered in London. And it was great to research, I spent quite a lot of time in Goth hangouts in London and have become a serious fan of a bar called Garlic and Shots in Soho. You can visit their website HERE
The cover was designed several months ago, and I like it a lot.
Lastnight is the first of my books to be edited by Oliver Johnson, who also edits John Grisham in the UK. He lives south of the river which is helpful and he spotted several errors I'd made in describing Clapham! Who knew that the windmill had gone from the Common? Well, Oliver did!
Publication is set for January 16. I'm about to write a Jack Nightingale short story which I hope will be fun. Then I'm getting started on the new Spider Shepherd book. Busy, busy, busy!
Lastnight is already available on pre-order on Amazon - YOU CAN PRE-ORDER HERE
September 29, 2013
Lastnight is done - well the first draft, anyway!
I have just this minute written the final words of Lastnight, the fifth Jack Nightingale novel.
I'm exhausted but very happy because I think it's very, very good!
It came in at a whisker under 95,000 words, which is pretty much as I anticipated. I always knew the ending would work because I wrote that first, more than two months ago!
Like all books it's not completely done as it still has to be edited, but the plot is so tight I can't see there's much scope for changing things around. And yes, there's blood. A lot of blood....
Anyway, I'm off to celebrate with a few drinks. Then I have a Spider Shepherd book to write.
I'm exhausted but very happy because I think it's very, very good!
It came in at a whisker under 95,000 words, which is pretty much as I anticipated. I always knew the ending would work because I wrote that first, more than two months ago!
Like all books it's not completely done as it still has to be edited, but the plot is so tight I can't see there's much scope for changing things around. And yes, there's blood. A lot of blood....
Anyway, I'm off to celebrate with a few drinks. Then I have a Spider Shepherd book to write.
September 10, 2013
Three FREE Spider Shepherd SAS Short Stories
I'm offering the boxed set of three Spider Shepherd SAS short stories for free over the next three days.
The three short stories are Friendly Fire (where Shepherd is sent on a dangerous mission to a Taliban stronghold on the trail of the most wanted man in the world), Dead Drop (where Shepherd puts his life on the line to help a 12-year-old Afghan boy) and Kill Zone (where Shepherd pursues a murderous Taliban assassin).
I have another three Spider short stories ready to go - one set while he was on SAS selection and two set in Sierra Leone. I'll publish those as soon as I've finished writing the fifth Jack Nightingale book - Lastnight.
You can get the boxed set in the UK by clicking HERE
And for the Kindle in the US by clicking HERE
The three short stories are Friendly Fire (where Shepherd is sent on a dangerous mission to a Taliban stronghold on the trail of the most wanted man in the world), Dead Drop (where Shepherd puts his life on the line to help a 12-year-old Afghan boy) and Kill Zone (where Shepherd pursues a murderous Taliban assassin).I have another three Spider short stories ready to go - one set while he was on SAS selection and two set in Sierra Leone. I'll publish those as soon as I've finished writing the fifth Jack Nightingale book - Lastnight.
You can get the boxed set in the UK by clicking HERE
And for the Kindle in the US by clicking HERE
August 24, 2013
Price cuts for Midnight and Nightmare - now just £2.99
After a great deal of prodding, my publisher has agreed to drop the price of Midnight and Nightmare - books two and three in the Jack Nightingale series - to just £2.99.
I think that's a fair price to pay for an eBook that has been professionally published. I hear readers complain all the time that it isn't fair that eBooks are more expensive than paperbacks. It has to be said that part of the reason for the price disparity is that the Government charges VAT on eBooks but not on paperbacks, which has always seemed crazy to me. But I think it is unreasonable to expect readers to pay more than £5 for an eBook, especially one that has been in print for a few years.
Anyway, Midnight and Nightmare are now just £2.99 in the UK. If sales pick up I hope to persuade Hodder and Stoughton to reduce the price of more of my backlist.
YOU CAN BUY MIDNIGHT FOR £2.99 BY CLICKING HERE
And if you haven't read the Jack Nightingale series, now is a great time to start because the first book in the series - Nightfall - is just 99p!
YOU CAN BUY NIGHTFALL FOR JUST 99p BY CLICKING HERE
I think that's a fair price to pay for an eBook that has been professionally published. I hear readers complain all the time that it isn't fair that eBooks are more expensive than paperbacks. It has to be said that part of the reason for the price disparity is that the Government charges VAT on eBooks but not on paperbacks, which has always seemed crazy to me. But I think it is unreasonable to expect readers to pay more than £5 for an eBook, especially one that has been in print for a few years.
Anyway, Midnight and Nightmare are now just £2.99 in the UK. If sales pick up I hope to persuade Hodder and Stoughton to reduce the price of more of my backlist.
YOU CAN BUY MIDNIGHT FOR £2.99 BY CLICKING HERE
And if you haven't read the Jack Nightingale series, now is a great time to start because the first book in the series - Nightfall - is just 99p!
YOU CAN BUY NIGHTFALL FOR JUST 99p BY CLICKING HERE
July 23, 2013
True Colours is a bestseller - it's official.
True Colours entered the Sunday Times bestseller list last week - debuting at Number 8!
I was so pleased to see True Colours doing so well - I think it's one of my best books. I'm looking forward to starting the 11th Spider Shepherd novel.
