Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds showed these creatures not to be our feathered friends but do the herons found in London’s Hyde Park go out of their way to disprove this? Will DAVID and PETER really build their own nest or does the flighty, fledgling PETER have other plans? And while PETER plots and prevaricates with his own Mommy Dearest is the heroine of the Seventh Tale, the saccharine-inspired Mary Poppins, responsible for a spoonful of something else as opposed to sugar? As a besotted NIGEL COLLINS finds to his cost, for ‘charm’ read ‘harm.’
     These cautionary tales – most with terrifying consequences – continue. Beware of what you whisper in the middle of a sex show in downtown Bangkok! This could easily cost you an arm and a leg!
     History also repeats itself in the reincarnation of Julia Bovary, the flawed heroine of Gustave Flaubert’s historical novel. Meet the modern day Monsieur Bovary in the form of JULIAN MASTERTON and for rustic, idyllic France of the 1800s switch to the hedonistic pleasures of today’s South of France. Unlike the tragic original the ruthless JULIAN triumphs!
     More folkloric history emerges with Hamelin’s famous Pied Piper replaced by bumbling ERNEST CRAIG whose surprise Day Of Reckoning Party does exactly this and more!
     And last but not least, with the old still inspiring the new, while Oscar Wilde’s disfigured Dorian remained banished to the attic, DORIAN MONTAGU’s modern muse sits being constantly adored and adorned, the final embellishment being unwittingly donated by the avaricious TONY BURTON.
     With thirteen such tales offering such a combination of terror, titillation and tragedy perhaps some form of textual arousal is to be excused!

Still Life

Meet ETHELRED JONES, acclaimed film director of the bizarre; CLYTEMNESTRA, his beautiful ‘bacterial’ artist wife and the rest of this discordant quintet, the disgraced ‘donor’ doctor, CHARLES CONRAD CROSBY; the priapic black giant Man Friday named MONDAY and TRISOMY - a child old beyond her years – all melded together in the creation of the ultimate cinematic and art experience, STILL LIFE.Into this monstrous mélange comes the unsuspecting OSWALD ARGENT, an aspiring thespian more narcissus than actor, who finds himself – literally – taking ‘a step too far’ when accepting a misleading role in the meticulously planned STILL LIFE scenario. On entering the rarefied world of Bethlem Báthory, the JONES’S mysterious isolated country mansion known to the locals as Castle Dracula, the devious young OSWALD finds his film debut more gourmet than glamorous.
     Enter BRYAN SCIMA, his former lover who, by chance, ends up as Lady of the Manor with distant neighbour, SIR MILES ANSTRUTHER, a wealthy property developer. Coincidence follows coincidence through never-ending scenes of gratuitous violence mixed with glamour and the grotesque.
     Set in London, Italy and Morocco, STILL LIFE is an articulate, cynical novel filled with black humour at its most humorous; a volcanic-volatile hot bed of sex, greed, money and destruction. The story, which runs at a breath-taking pace, will keep the reader riveted in more ways than one. STILL LIFE is an ‘up and down’ ride which gathers momentum leading up to an unprecedented climax.
     Think EDGAR ALLAN POE meets FREUD, THE MARQUIS DE SADE and NOEL COWARD in a mind-blowing gang bang and you are almost there. To quote ETHELRED JONES, ‘We stuff the snuff!'