The Year of the Dragon

My son Simon Hayes has just finished the artwork for the cover of my book The Year of the Dragon, which I am preparing for publication, and hope to make available as an e-book before Christmas.

[image error]In the story Richard Rutherford, a Pietermaritzburg lawyer, is asked to wind up the estate of a woman who lived on a farm in the southern Drakensberg. He takes his friend Denis Walters, an auctioneer, on a weekend trip to see the farm, combining business with pleasure.

At the farm they meet the dead woman’s nephew, Ivan Morton, who is trying to sort out his aunt’s personal effects, and among the usual household goods they find a rather large collection of ikons. Denis takes some of them to get them valued, but before they can do that they discover that someone else is apparently after the ikons, and is prepared to kill for them.

The story arose from a challenge I issued to fans of Charles Williams.to write a book in the same genre. Charles Williams died in 1945, and so will write no more “supernatural thrillers”, as someone described his genre. So if there are to be any any more books in that genre, others will have to write them.  And having challenged others to write them, I thought I ought to do the same.