FREE COMPETITION
Congratulations to the following:Claire Fennelly, Jayne Fisentzides and John Allen Francis who all
win Signed Copies Of John Harvey's Frank Elder Trilogy.
Read message from Chris High
John Harvey: The Biography
John Harvey was born in London in 1938 and, after living in Nottingham for a good number of years, has now returned to north London to live. After studying at Goldsmiths' College, University of London, and at Hatfield Polytechnic, he took his Masters Degree in American Studies at the University of Nottingham, where he taught Film and Literature as a part-time lecturer between 1980 and 1986. After teaching English and Drama in secondary schools for twelve years, stopping in 1975, Harvey has lived primarily by his writing. For years he was a regular tutor on residential writing courses run by the Arvon Foundation, and in 1995 he was on the teaching faculty of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Fiction Workshop in Northern California. He has recently decided to do no further teaching, either in workshop or formal situations, but does continue to enjoy giving readings and talking about his work. Initially a writer of paperback fiction - both for adults and teenagers - John Harvey has over 90 published books to his credit. Now principally known as a writer of crime fiction, principally the Charlie Resnick novels, he continues to work on scripts for television and radio, where he has specialised in adapting the work of himself and others - his radio dramatisation of Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair" gained the Silver award in the radio drama section of the 1999 Sony Radio Awards, he has also adapted novels or short stories by Arnold Bennett, A.S. Byatt, Richard Ford, Bobbie Ann Mason and Jayne Anne Phillips. As a poet, his work has appeared in a large number of magazines and pamphlets, and "Ghosts of a Chance", a selected poems, was published by Smith Doorstop Press (Huddersfield, England) in 1992. John has two grown-up children, twins, Tom & Leanne, born to a marriage which ended in divorce in the mid-seventies; in 1998, 10th August to be precise, a third child, Molly Ernestine Boiling, was born in London, where he and Molly's mother, Sarah, were then living. After living in Cornwall for a year from the summer of 2003, John, Sarah & Molly moved to Nottingham in 2004.
Frank Elder: The Books
Flesh & Blood: Detective
Inspector Frank Elder is ensconced in a lonely retirement cottage in
Cornwall, mulling over the ruin of his long marriage and terrorized
almost nightly by a nightmare involving vicious cats and a decaying
corpse. Elder is also plagued, by day, by misgivings about the cases
he didn't solve, particularly the disappearance back in 1988 of a 16-year-old
girl named Susan Blacklock. Other girls have also gone missing in England
around that time, and two young men - a psycho named Alan McKeirnan
and his puppyish follower, Shane Donald - were convicted of abducting
and murdering one of them. Now Donald is about to be released from prison,
and that regrettable event triggers Elder into reinvestigating Susan's
disappearance. When Donald breaks parole and another young girl is murdered,
Elder's detective work takes on an urgent meaning beyond the absolution
of his own guilt. FLESH AND BLOOD was awarded The Crime Writers Association
Mystery & Thriller Book Club Silver Dagger for Fiction, 2004.
Ash & Bone:
When the take-down of a violent criminal goes badly wrong, something
doesn't feel right to Detective Sergeant Maddy Birch and her uneasiness
is compounded by the belief that someone is following her home.
Retired Detective Inspector Frank Elder's daughter, Katherine, is running
wild. Elder's fears for his daughter are underscored by guilt - it was
his involvement in a case that led directly to the abduction and rape
which has so unbalanced Katherine's life. Persuaded out of retirement,
Elder reopens a cold case which could have devastating repercussions
for the crime squad itself. Elder's investigations take place against
the backdrop of his increasing concern for his daughter. He must battle
his own demons before he can uncover the truth.
Darkness & Light: She wore a gold dress, short-sleeved, its skirt full-length and slightly flared. He could see the faint indentation on her left hand, a pale circle of skin giving away the fact that, until recently, a wedding ring had been there. She looked peaceful, lying there on the bed, her arms resting easily together, the left hand on the right, a slender silver cross and chain encircling her neck, and not a wrinkle, not a fold of her dress out of place. And, perhaps, she truly was at peace; after all, she was dead. The sight that greeted Detective Inspector Frank Elder on his first case with the Serious Crimes Unit was never solved, no one was ever charged and the murderer never found; at liberty to kill again. Eight years later, Elder's estranged wife contacts him in his Cornish hideaway. Her friend's sister Claire - a quiet and withdrawn widow in her fifties - has mysteriously disappeared. Elder, reluctantly, agrees to dig around and see what he can find. Then Claire is found, dead, arranged with meticulous detail on her bed, and it doesn't take long for Elder to make the connection. It's obviously the work of the same unbalanced individual and, to find the killer, Elder must shine a light into the darkest recesses of human behaviour.
Here are the winners of the John Harvey competition. Many congratulations to Claire, Jayne and John - your books will be with you very soon - and thanks to all of you who entered. The choice, as always, was very difficult to make.
Keep checking back to the site, as there will be more prize competitions coming soon.
For now though all the best,
Chris
break the rules as I see fit.” - Chris High 2003.