Embers of Bridges out now!

There’s great excitement in the Makovesky household as y latest book has just gone live on Kindle (and KU). ‘Embers of Bridges’ is a comedy noir set in Birmingham featuring a hapless gang of petty criminals, robberies, loyalty, jewellery, football, a hint of gay lurve, betrayal, and a bizarre getaway on a canal boat.

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Van driver Mickey’s been following best mate Gaz from one scrape to another since primary school. He’s been deluding himself about the reasons for almost as long: Gaz is fun; Gaz brings excitement to his otherwise dull life; Gaz’s sister Trudy is hot enough for any kid to die for.

Now the Live Hard, Die Young gang’s all grown up and the scrapes have turned into robberies, but the excuses stay the same. Mickey’s loyalty is about to be tested, though, as Gaz is acting weird and the robberies keep going tits-up. As their latest job in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter leads to a bizarre getaway on a canal boat, he can think of only one thing. Not him. Not Gaz. This can’t be lurve. Can it?

But Mickey isn’t the only one with a secret. And when he finds out what Gaz is hiding, he has to decide which of his bridges to burn…

“Embers of Bridges has it all: dark wit, a distinctive Birmingham setting, and a grifter you can’t help liking…” ~Margot Kinberg, author of the Joel Williams mysteries and the Patricia Stanley mysteries

“This author is fabulous at building an atmosphere… Beautifully written and quietly compelling, this is a gem of a story.” ~Ellie Thomas, author of London in the Rain and the Twelve Letters series

Embers of Bridges coming soon!

It’s official! After weeks (months!) of writing, editing, proofreading, rewriting, re-editing, designing a cover and sweating a few buckets, Embers of Bridges is all set to hit the virtual shelves and will hopefully be available by this time next week.

This noirish comedy of errors in set in Birmingham (the suburbs, the canals and above all, the world famous Jewellery Quarter) and features Mickey, Gaz and the rest of the Live Hard, Die Young gang as well as friendship, loyalty, disillusionment, a few Pink Floyd references and even the occasional elephant.

Here’s the blurb:

“Four friends. One robbery. What price loyalty?

Van driver Mickey’s been following best mate Gaz from one scrape to another since primary school. He’s been deluding himself about the reasons for almost as long: Gaz is fun; Gaz brings excitement to his otherwise dull life; Gaz’s sister Trudy is hot enough for any kid to die for.

Now the Live Hard, Die Young gang’s all grown up and the scrapes have turned into robberies, but the excuses stay the same. Mickey’s loyalty is about to be tested, though, as Gaz is acting weird and the robberies keep going tits-up. As their latest job in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter leads to a bizarre getaway on a canal boat, he can think of only one thing. Not him. Not Gaz. This can’t be lurve. Can it?

But Mickey isn’t the only one with a secret. And when he finds out what Gaz is hiding, he has to decide which of his bridges to burn…”

And here’s the rather spiffing cover, which I designed myself using images from ilya on Pexels and Tim Mossholder on Unsplash. The colours, the bridge and the helicopter are all strangely relevant…

I’ll post again the minute the book’s available, but in the meantime, here are a couple of quotes from readers who’ve devoured the ARC and seem to have enjoyed it…

‛Fiona Glass is fabulous at building an atmosphere and that is one of the gripping elements of this beautifully written and quietly compelling contemporary gay noir story.’ —Ellie Thomas, author of ‘London in the Rain’ and the Twelve Letters series

‘What do you do when life’s going pear-shaped, and the mates you thought you could trust let you down? Embers of Bridges has it all: dark wit, a distinctive Birmingham setting, and a grifter you can’t help liking. Mickey Delaney is just trying to make a life for himself, but with friends like his, that’s not going to be as easy as he’d like! Come along for the ride as Mickey dodges bad traffic, bad weather, bad luck, and dodgy friends!’  —Margot Kinberg, author of the Joel Williams mysteries and the Patricia Stanley mysteries

Crawling out of the coffin…

In my last but one post, I mentioned that if ever I started writing crime and noir again you’d be the first to know. Well, guess what?

Pic credit: Allan Stewart on pixels.com

It’s been a long time away from the genre, but I never expected two years of pandemic, when I could hardly bear to think about crime fiction let alone write it. But for the last few months I have, at last, been able to sit down and work on a darker book again. And the great news is that I’ve actually finished writing it.

So what is it, I hear you ask? Well, it’s called ‘Embers of Bridges’, and it’s a humorous gay noir set in Birmingham (where else), featuring a hapless gang of robbers, the Jewellery Quarter, and a getaway on a canal boat. I first had the idea over a decade ago, but it’s never quite gelled before. Now it has, and I’m surprisingly pleased with the result.

Of course, it’s not quite ready to go out into the world yet. I started on the edits this morning, and as usual it’ll need quite a bit of work. But I already have a cover and a blurb, and I’m really hoping I can turn this baby around in the next few weeks. In which case, once again, you’ll be the first to know…

Birmingham library award

I see the new library in Birmingham was up for the prestigious Stirling Award, given out to the best new architect-designed building in the UK, this year.  Sadly for Brum, it didn’t win.  The formal accolade went to the rebuilt Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, in the face of strong opposition from buildings like The Shard in London.

Birmingham Library did come away with a consolation prize, though, since it won a BBC website vote on the most popular of the six Stirling contenders.

I still don’t really like the building – to me it looks like a pile of cardboard boxes loosely wrapped in concertina barbed wire – but deep down I’m happy for its success!

Digging up the dirt

Yet another amusing little snippet from the West Midlands, where the Canal and Rivers Trust are about to start work on dredging some of the vast network of old canals. You might remember some of my previous posts about Birmingham having more miles of canal than Venice, so obviously they’ve got their work cut out. And I’m sure it will all be much pleasanter and better for the environment and the local wildlife as a result.

The crime writer in me can’t help thinking, though, that there are scores of criminals across the region having serious panic attacks at the thought of what those dredgers might bring up out of the depths. Drugs stashes, stolen money, loot, dead bodies… The results could help with half the unsolved crimes in the Midlands!

Wot, no ladders?

A fun little story from the brand new, all-singing all-dancing library in Birmingham city centre, which opened in a blaze of lights and glory a few short months ago.

Apparently, staff can’t reach some of the books because they’re on shelves so far above the ground that they can’t reach without special ladders. And, um, nobody thought to order the ladders.

Luckily, the books are “low-use, academic titles” that aren’t taken out very often. Just as well, really, that it isn’t Dan Brown or Fifty Shades, or the staff might have to resort to hot air balloons…

Pictures of… Birmingham

Birmingham may not have quite the romantic cachet of Paris, New York or Prague, but it’s a fine city in its own right with a rich multi-cultural society and many interesting buildings, both old and new. Now, according to this BBC article, the Some Cities website have developed a new image-sharing facility for photos of the city, where folks can post their pictures, share stories, keep a record of daily life, and browse the archive to see what Birmingham is really like.

This sounds like a brilliant resource, not just for anyone remotely interested in the city, but also for writers wanting to set their books there. I’ll definitely be popping in for a rummage.

A story – in 81 words

I’ve had a tiny story published on the 81Words website, where the point is to tell a tale in exactly 81 words. Not a word more, not a word less.

It’s surprisingly difficult – you wouldn’t believe the number of times I thought I’d cracked it, only to find I’d written 79… or 83. However, I love a challenge so I persevered, and the end result is a daft little piece called ‘Money Laundering’. Rather improbably, this was inspired by a real news story from Birmingham, where a large bag of money was found floating in a canal. However, the character of Carl is entirely my own invention. Hopefully nobody could actually be that stupid!

You can find the story here, and if anyone would like to vote for it on the site I’ll be your friend forever, or at the very least be very grateful.

Real Brummies required

I was amused to see that the producers of the second series of Peaky Blinders, the crime drama based in Birmingham in the early twentieth century, are appealing for more local people to audition for roles. This is after the accents in the first series were criticised as being unrealistic and weird. Presumably they’re hoping that by having genuine Brummies in minor speaking roles, it will bring a bit more authenticity to the series, which ::cough:: probably wouldn’t be difficult, judging by the few supposedly Brummie accents I heard.

Now, if only they could audition some of the local streets to be used as locations at the same time…

More canals than Venice?

Minus the question mark, this is the title of a new film about Birmingham by Steve Rainbow. He’s so fed up about the negative portrayal of the city in the media that he’s made a film containing 100 facts about the city’s history, culture and famous residents in an attempt to set the record straight.

It’s an amusing concept with a serious edge; people who live in Birmingham are getting sick of the way it’s shown on tv and in the newspapers, as a dull 1960s heap of concrete filled with mindless idiots. Which makes about as much sense as saying all Parisians have strings of onions round their necks, or that every New Yorker rides around in yellow taxis every day. In other words, nothing could actually be further from the truth.

I knew about most of the examples quoted in the article, but not the literary gems – that Arthur Conan Doyle lived and worked in Aston for several years; that Rev Wilbert Awdry wrote several ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ books in Kings Norton; and that Barbara Cartland was born in Edgbaston. I wonder if her house was pink?

Oh, and the reason for that question mark? Well, when I lived in the city I was always told that Birmingham has more miles of canal (as opposed to ‘more canals’) than Venice. It’s a small tweak, but it makes a surprising amount of difference!

Crash capital of the UK

Somebody’s been reading my stories, or at the very least my blog posts. According to this news item, Birmingham now tops the league table for the highest number of ‘crash for cash’ scams anywhere in the country, along with Bradford.

I was relieved to see that the suburb I used as a location for my recent story didn’t appear on the list, so at least I can’t be accused of anything nefarious myself. One or two weren’t that far away, though. So, am I psychic? Have I caught the wave of a new crime phenomenon? Or is Birmingham just a crime-ridden hell-hole that’s likely to top any crime statistics league? I’ll leave you lot to decide.

Sniff it up

I did a double-take when I saw this news item about Birmingham City Council handing out free cannabis scratch-and-sniff cards on one of its council estates (the rather aptly named Druids Heath).

Good grief, I thought. Are they trying to turn everyone into an addict, then raise some much-needed revenue by selling them the drugs?

Actually it’s a good deal more sensible than that. The cards contain no actual cannabis, and are simply there to familiarise local people with the smell of growing hemp, so that they can identify illegal cannabis farms and ‘shop’ them to the police.

Neat idea. All the same, I wonder how long it’ll be before some drugs gang gets the idea of replicating the cards using real grass, or worse, in order to benefit from the subsequent rise in addiction. Or is that just my nasty mind at work again?