All Entries in the "Standalones" Category
Read Native Rites online
We’re continuing to experiment with new distribution mechanisms around here and as part of this we’re now making an entire novel available online. Click below to read (and download if you subscribe to Scribd) Native Rites, the fourth book I wrote. Let me be the first to say this is not typical of my work. By book four most authors are finding their feet; I was still trying to work out where I wanted to be.
That’s not to say I dislike this book, which is the only work of mine set entirely in my native England. In fact I’m rather proud of it. My then publisher wanted something set in the UK. I didn’t want to cover any of the obvious locations, such as London, so I set the book on my own doorstep, in rural east Kent. And no, it’s not like this really… honest. Though if you explore the countryside around the beautiful village of Stelling Minnis you will appreciate some of the fictional locations.
Chopin now available to read
The Chopin Manuscript on Kindle
In a way anyway. ITW’s audio project The Chopin Manuscript, which won the prized audio Oscar an Audie earlier this year, is now available in book for, electronically that is. The work is out for Kindle, Amazon’s e-book reader.
That means sadly it is largely confined to the US for now (though my old mate Kathryn Fox somehow manages to own a Kindle she picked up on eBay and use it from Australia - hope this doesn’t dump you in the dunnee, doll.) But things will change I’m sure. Chopin was written for audio — Jeffery Deaver kicks off and ends the tale, I provide chapter two, and a variety of authors including Lee Child and Lisa Scottoline join in along the way. This does mean the piece is shorter than the average book which seems to be reflected in the selling price, a mere $9.99.
It’s only just gone up there but we have a nice review already. Thank you AW 830 of Bonita Springs, Florida, for the following…
This is fun. It held my interest throughout the book. Knowing a new author would have to pick up the pieces at the end of each chapter added mystery and anticipation. I wish it had been longer.
Read Saved and help protect Kent
It’s more than a year now since Saved, my real-life account of the successful battle to prevent a huge housing complex swallowing the little Kent village of Wye, appeared. You can still buy the book in the village at Wye News and campaign headquarters, the New Flying Horse. But there’s a fresh outlet too.
I have donated most of the remaining copies of the book to the doughty campaigners facing a similarly greedy and unnecessary development nightmare in nearby Sellindge. So please visit their site and support their campaign, with a book if you like (all proceeds now go to their campaign and another local charity).
For those of you too far away to get a book - or if you’d simply like to know what all the fuss is about - I’m happy to put the entire book of Saved online below. You can email it to others as a pdf and, if you join up to Scribd for free using the icon below, download your own copy too. To see a larger version which you can adjust to your own preferred size just click on the Scribd icon.
Semana Santa available again
My very first book, Semana Santa, has been out of print in the UK for a few years, even though the movie of it is still available. However thanks to my very enthusiastic audio publisher you can now get it again via audio, beautifully narrated by Sean Barrett.
I’m rather proud of this book, particularly the opening which you can listen to for free on the page at Whole Story Audio. Thanks to everyone at WF Howes for making this possible.
Lucifer’s Shadow audio book now available on Audible
UK readers can now listen to the audiobook of the standalone Venetian novel, Lucifer’s Shadow, on Audible, part of the growing David Hewson collection on the downloadable audio service. You will find a number of titles on on both Audible US and Audible UK. But please note that due to rights complexities Lucifer’s Shadow is currently only available on audio in the UK - we are working to release this for the US, however.
For newcomers to Audible… this is a very simple and easy to use download service for audio books which will play back on iPods and MP3 players, as well as computers. The cheapest way to buy books is to look at the various subscription options.The Audible version is an unabridged reading of the original book produced by Clipper Audio, and lasts 18 hours.
A Spanish debut… my first novel
Holy Week in Spain… and a murderer is loose. Academic Maria Gutierrez can see something in his ways that the police are missing. But her insight does nothing to help her popularity in the force-and draws her to the attention of the killer.
The Angel Brothers, two controversial modern artists, are found dead in a southern Spanish city, in a killing that emulates a famous painting. Visiting academic Maria Gutierrez was supposed to be an observer to the police investigation. But her own past in the city soon puts her one step ahead of the cops… and in the killer’s sights.
Translated into many languages, and a continuing summer hit in Germany, Semana Santa marked my world debut as a novelist with a dark and powerful tale set in a region of Europe most English language writers ignored at the time.
In 2000 Semana Santa was filmed, mainly on location in Seville, starring Mira Sorvino, below. The movie, in which David had no involvement, went straight to DVD in most territories. It is still available under the title The Angel of Death in the US, and as Semana Santa in Europe.
From San Francisco to Seattle: A tale of two eras
Palo Alto, northern California, 1975
A child goes missing in northern California. Twenty years later, people want to know why, and the past begins to unravel for a group of former friends who thought they’d escaped it forever.
Seattle 1995
A group of students retire to a remote house to experiment with LSD. One, Michael Quinn, kidnaps a child. A body is found. And for the rest of the group the battle to escape justice begins.
Twenty years on, with Quinn about to be unexpectedly released from jail, a mysterious young Englishwoman, Joni Lascelles, arrives in the city, asking questions about the kidnapping, unravelling the past for those who thought it was long dead. The horror of the past comes to engulf the present, leaving no-one untouched by its power. Turn by turn, shifting effortlessly between two eras twenty years apart, the story is played out with relentless compulsion to an overwhelming climax.
Epiphany was my second book. It was completed it in the summer of 1995 while he was still waiting for Semana Santa to be published. At the time he was spending a lot of journalistic time visiting San Francisco and Seattle. The contrast between the two - California with its lost innocence, and Seattle with its hard, uncompromising Nineties materialism- was what provoked the book. It’s a complex, ambitious piece of work.
If it gets republished I’d take something of a scalpel to parts because I think it could do with some editing. But I’m still pretty pleased with this work. I’ve written nothing quite like it since and, to be honest, it’s pretty damn scary.
John Fowles on acid. The Guardian
The atmosphere of mystery, menace and guilt is sustained with great skill, building tension to a seismic explosion as ghoulish characters squirm to escape a relentless past returning to destroy them. Daily Telegraph
David Hewson has an altogether wider range of literary and cultural reference than most thrillers. Impressive… Esquire