The Portobello Book Club

[wangi]

Anyone read the The Existential Detective by Alice Thompson? What do you think?

http://www.tworavenspress.com/TRP%20The ... ctive.html

William Blake is a private detective. When he is asked by an eccentric scientist to investigate the whereabouts of his amnesiac missing wife, Louise, Will finds himself entangled in layers of deceptions and disappearances that lead him inexorably back to an unsolved mystery in his own past: the loss of his six-year-old daughter Emily.

The case takes Will to brothels, nightclubs and amusement arcades in the Scottish seaside resort of Portobello. Identities become con-fused as his sexual obsession with a nightclub singer becomes entwined with sightings of Louise, his own torturous memories, and new visions of the lost Emily.

The Existential Detective is a surreal, dreamlike story of loss, incest and what it means to remember.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/book ... art-1.html

...
Sadie Jones

The book I most enjoyed this year was The Existential Detective by Alice Thompson (Two Ravens Press); a beguiling, surreal triple bluff of a book. It’s a dark, tricky tale; Raymond Chandler set in Edinburgh’s seaside resort of Portobello. Then the reader becomes aware that things are not at all what they seem, that they are in a through-the-looking-glass world where the detective is called William Blake and his most reliable eyewitness is a blind man. At last the book seems to come a full circle, adding up where you least expect it to, illuminating, while at the same time still living up to its perfect title. Loved it.
...

L/

[wangi]

I see the latest book from Portobello resident Doug Johnstone has just been released - Smokeheads

Four friends, one weekend, gallons of whisky. What could go wrong?

Driven by amateur whisky-nut Adam, four late-thirties ex-university mates are heading to Islay – the remote Scottish island world famous for its single malts – with a wallet full of cash, a stash of coke and a serious thirst.

Over a weekend soaked in the finest cask strength spirit, they meet young divorcee Molly, who Adam has a soft spot for, her little sister Ash who has all sorts of problems and Molly’s ex-husband Joe, a control freak who also happens to be the local police. As events spiral out of control, they are all thrown into a nightmare that gets worse at every turn.

A wild trip to the Scottish Highlands, Doug’s debut on the Faber crime list is a classic violent thriller, doused with black humour.

‘Lulls the reader with the warm glow of a good dram on a winter’s night, then ambushes him with all the bitter nastiness of a brutal whisky hangover’

[wangi]

J.K. Rowling has obviously based her noew book on Portobello.

http://www.jkrowling.com/en_GB/#/the-new-book

[wangi]

Local author Doug Johnstone's latest novel is 99p today for Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006K6MVNM

Hit & Run is Amazon’s Kindle Deal of the Day THIS SUNDAY

My Kindle got stolen recently. For all you folks lucky enough to not have been robbed, Hit & Run is gonna be cheap as chips (99p, I think) for ONE DAY ONLY on Sunday 22nd April.

Get it while you can, folks. And spread the word.

If you already bought the Kindle version of Hit & Run at a higher price, I AM DEEPLY SORRY. I really am. But I don’t make these daft rules. I’ll buy you a pint if I see you, how about that?

While I’m here, I have a favour to ask. If you’ve already read Hit & Run and liked it, and if you have a spare couple of minutes, it would greatly help if you could write a wee customer review on Amazon. I have it on good authority that these things matter.

Much appreciated, so it is.

Dx

[SoupDragon]

I see Hit and Run is in kindle top 10 even though it's gone back to the normal price

I was pleased to discover I didn't need a kindle to read it, kindle books can be downloaded to laptop

[wangi]

http://dougjohnstone.wordpress.com/2013 ... nch-event/

Folks,

I have a NEW BOOK COMING OUT on 7TH MARCH.

It’s called GONE AGAIN and, as you can see, it has a beautiful, beautiful cover.

We’re having a LAUNCH EVENT at BLACKWELL’S, SOUTH BRIDGE, EDINBURGH on THURSDAY 7TH MARCH, 6.30pm. Please come. I will be reading and chatting and juggling. Maybe not juggling. Then we’ll go to the pub, all of us.

Here’s the blether about the book:

**
‘It’s just to say that no-one has come to pick Nathan up from school, and we were wondering if there was a problem of some kind?’

As Mark Douglas photographs a pod of whales stranded in the waters off Edinburgh’s Portobello Beach, he is called by his son’s school: his wife, Lauren, hasn’t turned up to collect their son. Calm at first, Mark collects Nathan and takes him home but as the hours slowly crawl by he increasingly starts to worry.

With brilliantly controlled reveals, we learn some of the painful secrets of the couple’s shared past, not least that it isn’t the first time Lauren has disappeared. And as Mark struggles to care for his son and shield him from the truth of what’s going on, the police seem dangerously short of leads. That is, until a shocking discovery…

In the tradition of The Vanishing and Tell No One comes a brilliant, guess-until-the-very-end psychological thriller.

‘Moving and fiercely gripping, Gone Again hurls you along with a series of whipsmart twists that leave you breathless. Calling to mind the best of Harlan Coben, Johnstone shows us how quickly an ordinary life can take one dark turn and nothing is ever the same again.’ Megan Abbott

‘A quite literally heart-pounding thriller. I was turning every page with an irresistible mixture of dread and compulsion.’ Chris Brookmyre
**

If that doesn’t entice you, let me tell you that there is also a lot of Star Wars chat in it, a restraining order, the tooth fairy, pints of blood seeping between the floorboards, guns, a chase on Porty Beach, constipation, a playground punch up, dead bodies and chapped lips.

Early warning – this book is apparently making some people cry.

So come to the launch! Enjoy! Ask questions! Drink wine! Heckle!

Hopefully see you there.

Cheers all,
Doug

[wangi]

Finished Doug Johnstone's latest Gone Again last night. A fast paced wee read, with a lot of it set here in Porty - beach, Towerbank, Marlborough St, ...

Marlborough Street has never seen that amount of action!

...

‘It’s just to say that no-one has come to pick Nathan up from school, and we were wondering if there was a problem of some kind?’

As Mark Douglas photographs a pod of whales stranded in the waters off Edinburgh’s Portobello Beach, he is called by his son’s school: his wife, Lauren, hasn’t turned up to collect their son. Calm at first, Mark collects Nathan and takes him home but as the hours slowly crawl by he increasingly starts to worry.

With brilliantly controlled reveals, we learn some of the painful secrets of the couple’s shared past, not least that it isn’t the first time Lauren has disappeared. And as Mark struggles to care for his son and shield him from the truth of what’s going on, the police seem dangerously short of leads. That is, until a shocking discovery…

In the tradition of The Vanishing and Tell No One comes a brilliant, guess-until-the-very-end psychological thriller.

‘Moving and fiercely gripping, Gone Again hurls you along with a series of whipsmart twists that leave you breathless. Calling to mind the best of Harlan Coben, Johnstone shows us how quickly an ordinary life can take one dark turn and nothing is ever the same again.’ Megan Abbott

‘A quite literally heart-pounding thriller. I was turning every page with an irresistible mixture of dread and compulsion.’ Chris Brookmyre
**

If that doesn’t entice you, let me tell you that there is also a lot of Star Wars chat in it, a restraining order, the tooth fairy, pints of blood seeping between the floorboards, guns, a chase on Porty Beach, constipation, a playground punch up, dead bodies and chapped lips.
...

L/