Fletcher Spin-Off

My latest book, 'Thief Catcher' is a spin-off from 'Fletcher's Glorious 1st June' which introduced a character that badly needed another book.

Any author will say that characters develop a life of their own, and this one certainly did as far as I am concerned, such that I could not let him rest.

He is Sam Slym the thief catcher: a grim, bone-faced, immaculately-dressed man, with a chin shaved glossy black-red by the closeness of the razor's daily passage.

He was raised by a pugilist father and is Cockney to the core, but has tremendous aspirations to rise in society. His love-affair with Lady Sarah Coignwood, should have raised him up, but she spurned him and deeply wounded him, and he is overthrown with conflicting emotions when he meets her again.

Slym has sent more villains to the gallows than any other man in London, and always went to watch them swing. He is an acutely-intelligent detective, who now must work with his 'Dr Watson': Sir John Leicester-Fleming, a kindly, natural aristocrat, a thorough gentleman and Slym's character opposite.

There's plenty of crime and murder in 'Thief Catcher' but a touch of James Bond too, because Slym uncovers a threat to the very existence of the British Nation.

And he falls in Love with Sarah Coignwood all over again, even though he knows that he shouldn't, because even Slym had his weaknesses, and she is all of them all in one lovely body.

It's characters that drive a book, and I hope you will like Sam Slym and Sir John, though perhaps not Lady Sarah. However beautiful she may be, I don't like her at all, and that's a fact. But she's worth reading about.

Why are the bad girls always so much more interesting than the good girls?

All best,

John Drake