Mister Kreasey's Demon

by Raymond Nickford

Broken by his street-hardened London students, reduced to paranoia, can Amy's teacher stop himself losing she, alone, he might have trusted, might have loved ?

Mister Kreasey's Demon

Visiting his apartment to bring her teacher a long overdue essay, Kreasey noticed :

"Amy stood on her very highest heels, the ones that gave her an extra three-and-a-half inches over a world that had always seemed to look down on her beyond the narrow backs streets from which she'd been born. On her first visit, she had seemed almost undernourished, shivering in a short skirt with a slit up the side. He'd wanted to tell her that she'd made him happy - just by appearing on his doorstep with her essay and those eyes... eyes which spoke of deprivation and yet held, for him, openness and simplicity more beautiful than he'd seen in any student before.

Amy, alone among his students, had tried to help him. She was searching his eyes, confused. He recalled those moments when, beside him in bed, her face had shared that open comic side of her lovemaking with him. He couldn't forget how much she'd tried to be his passport to those roughnecks from classroom 12D... those who always seemed to be gathering with a hunting knife, getting closer...

'Well, are we going to see you in them?' she smiled, still holding his shorts out like a trophy. But as he watched her lips, they seemed to shape like those in a poorly dubbed film where the voice is out-of-sync with the words... reminding him to 'eat up' all his tablets and then he'd never be 'cut up' . "

Editorial Reviews :

" An atmospheric, vibrant, almost spooky page-turner and a psychological suspense, both moving and tender. "

Reay Tannahill - historian, novelist and author of The Seventh Son.

" As a former London teacher, Raymond Nickford has nailed the teacher's fear of the 'Lord of the Flies' pack mentality perfectly. And what a cliffhanger ! "

Marsha Moore - author of The Hating Game.

The author, Raymond Nickford, has a degree in Psychology and Philosophy from University College of North Wales. Troubled souls, the lonely, his inspiration.

Other Titles

Family Tree : Stories of Love Beyond the Grave

The body of Eddy's mother was found entangled in fungus-laden roots of the rotting ancient yew on the cemetery side of the family's garden fence. At nights, Eddy stutters, imploring his father to believe that the tree - or is it his mother - seems to call him. Dad just keeps saying "Grief works in strange ways, boy. You'll heal !" But that tree... Mum... calls. Should he sneak out... to the cemetery side? Or had Mum gone to that cold place which Dad kept saying was "Just death by misadventure, Eddy, as the autopsy stated" ?

Loss of family and loved ones revealing how, for those left behind, hurt and longing can find resolution - where unexpected.

Twists in the Tale

Schizophrenic Sam Baldock says he 'hears' Beethoven calling him. For therapy, his doctor and daughter Joanne accompany Sam to the Beethoven Museum in Vienna, once the composer's apartment. Will lonely Joanne, at last, get closer - to her Dad ?
Aristo's Family

Aristo, private museum curator in Paphos, Cyprus, living alone with his sole surviving son Pavlos, is obsessed with his belief that he still has surviving family, even though told they were all burned during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

In his preoccupation he has come to to neglect Pavlos. Yet both Aristo's and his son's deepening need to belong, so long mutually exclusive, are at the core of this novel. Father and son... or strangers forever ?

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Raymond Nickford says that, to him, "people are stranger than fiction, more fascinating".

Perhaps this is what led to his degree in Psychology and Philosophy at University College North Wales. His teaching of English in colleges and as a private tutor has, he believes, informed his literary thriller "A Child from the Wishing Well" featuring an eerie music tutor, her young pupil Rosie and Rosie's paranoid and inept father, Gerard, who nevertheless yearns to mean more to her.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Raymond-Nickf...


Meet the author :

http://susansbooks37.wordpress.com/20...

"A Child from the Wishing Well" can also be bought or sampled in Kindle from
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_nos...


This book was selected by Harper Collins for their top 5 Gold Star Award on Authonomy.com, May 2010.

Candace Bowen, author of A Knight of Silence, has written of A Child from the Wishing Well :

"Growing up in a suburb of Chicago, the first scary movie I remember seeing was the 1965 Bette Davis movie, The Nanny. To this day, that movie has always stuck with me as one of the great psychological thrillers of all time. For me, A Child from the Wishing Well, by Raymond Nickford, is reminiscent of that movie.

Ruth, the eerie music tutor, and Gerard strap you in, and take you on a psychological thrill-ride to the very end."

Though people may be stranger than fiction, still, souls – particularly troubled ones – have been indispensable for Raymond's novels, Aristo's Family, Mister Kreasey's Demon and Twists in the Tale.

All these titles can now be sampled or bought for under £1.50 as downloaded Kindle e-books at:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_n...

If you don't have a kindle reader, you can now download a free kindle reader to sample e-books on amazon.co.uk using their KindleForPC or on amazon.com.

Nickford's genre, with hints of Hitchcock, is mainly psychological suspense with underlying romance, driven by his interest in "the outsider, the lonely and any driven to extremity".