Jungle Drums

Watch This Space

2009-12-28T16:21:00.000-08:00

I appreciate this page looks a bit sparse - but it's all part of a major New Year's revamp of the website which will hopefully come to fruition in mid-January.

Until then, back to the festivities and I'll see you in 2010.

Carry On Killing

2009-07-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

To Carlisle Library for their Mid-Summer Murder event, where I am to give a talk and sign a few books. These things are terrifying, because you never know who - if anybody - is going to show up. I have visions of a cosy one-to-one with some bloke in an anorak.

Fortunately the organisers have rustled up a dozen or so hapless souls, who listen intently as I give them the spiel about my books and my previous life as a tabloid hack. As usual, it's the latter that interests them most - so I ditch my notes and keep them entertained with stories about Sam Fox and space aliens.

One old dame, named Beryl, thinks I am "a very funny lad, who likes a laugh." She wonders if I have any plans to write a "funny book". She even has a title: Carry On Killing.

I promise to mention it to my editor.

Big day for BURN

2009-06-25T06:15:00.000-07:00

BURN is published today - a strangely anticlimactic experience, coming as it does amid frantic rewrites of MACHETE, which was going so swimmingly...too swimmingly.

Last time, I had a grand launch at my local branch of Waterstones complete with invites, warm white wine, and a lengthy booze-up at a club round the corner. My agent and my editor made the trip up from London and it was all very exciting.

It was also six months ago, which is why this time I've decided to have a fairly low-key launch. In fact it's more of a signing. If you're anywhere near Waterstones in Carlisle on Saturday July 11 between 12-4pm why not pop in and kee me company? It's the first of a number of events which are suddenly stacking up. Last week I was in Glasgow addressing a group of Scottish librarians. Next month alone I think I've got three public events lined up. Check out the website for further details.

Anyway now that BURN is out there the reviewers will be having their say about my baby. In fact I've already had a couple of reviews already. One from Chris High was very positive. The other was from a bloke called Russell James who wasn't so keen. I wouldn't mind, but he took it upon himself to give away the ending of the book - which was hardly in the spirit of the game, and was rather more to do with him being a clever dick.

Still onwards and upwards!

Burn is Book of the Month

2009-06-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

Less than a month to go before Burn is published in the UK – and I’ve just got back from a week’s holiday to discover it is going to be Waterstone’s Crime Book of the Month for July, which is great news.

By then, with any luck I will have finished Machete, which was going swimmingly until the last 100 pages when it went decidedly off the map. When you’ve got Jake Moore dangling from the rotors of a helicopter like a cross between James Bond and Jason Bourne, a serious rewrite is required I’m afraid.

Still it will keep me busy. Which reminds me, I’d better get on and write the bloody thing. Until next time...

Not Dead, Writing.

2009-05-15T17:20:00.001-07:00

I always used to think that that “Not Dead, Sleeping” was the most bizarre inscription that could possibly be put on somebody’s tombstone, suggesting that the deceased was in fact having a snooze when they were abducted, stuffed in a coffin and buried six feet under.

Then came the trend for slabs with photographs of the deceased attached to them. Not only that, but the deceased when they were in the pink of health – raising a glass at a party, or giving the thumbs-up sign after winning at Carlisle races.

A friend once suggested the epitaph: “Not Dead, In Rio”, accompanied by a photo of the supposed deceased surrounded by topless dancers.

I still maintain this is a brilliant idea and I shall be ordering my tombstone forthwith.

Anyway the point of this digression is that I am not dead, but trying desperately to get the next book in my Jake & Jouma series finished. So if I have not been as blogtastic as I should, then that’s the reason.

Normal service will be resumed – which, come to think of it, is a cracking epitaph in itself.

FaceSpace

2009-04-22T04:29:00.000-07:00

As you will see from the links on the right, I have been further dragged kicking and screaming into the 21^st century.

There are now “fan pages” on Facebook and MySpace, which I am told every author in the modern age needs in order to spread the word.

Please feel free to sign up to one or both. I’m still not quite sure how best to use them, but I may well post some chapters of forthcoming Jake and Jouma books. Then again I might just ask a young person what to do.

Monkey Talk

2009-04-20T09:47:00.001-07:00

The audiobook of Bait has just been released by W F Howes.

It is a strange experience to hear your words read out by someone else. In my case the narrator is an actor called Ben Onwukwe, who fans of the fire brigade drama London’s Burning may recall played the part of, er, “Recall”.

It can’t have been an easy gig: the book has a vast cast of characters, with accents ranging from Kenyan to Kazakhstani, via Jo’burg, New York, Kinshasa and Sarf Lahndan.

Mr Onwukwe, it must be said, deals with them all expertly. His only downfall is Jake Moore’s Geordie accent.

But then Geordie, for some reason, is the one that scuppers everybody – and I include the likes of Rory Bremner and Harry Enfield in the list of luminaries who have tried and failed to get it right.

In attempting to capture what they think is its peculiar sing-song nature, those born south of the Tyne invariably overcompensate, resulting in a bizarre hybrid of Teesside and orang-utan.

This has always struck me as odd, as most Geordies of my acquaintance speak in the same flat drone as Alan Shearer.

For the record the Oscar for Best Attempt by a Southerner was by London-born Mark Strong, when he played Tosker in Our Friends in the North.

The worst? I’m afraid that was Newcastle-born actor Jimmy Nail, who, during his heyday in the early 1990s (remember Spender?), swapped his thick brogue for what’s known on Tyneside as “posh Geordie” and ended up sounding like he was from Tucson, Arizona.

Anyway, for more details of the audiobook check out: www.wfhowes.co.uk . Happy listening.

The Sight Of My Own Voice

2009-04-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

Visitors to the Jungle Drums page of the website will have noticed a subtle change of format – namely it no longer exists and you’ve been directed here instead.

A friend of mine, perusing the site, wondered why, instead of fiddling around with carefully-designed bulletins, I didn’t just do a blog like everyone else.

My first reaction was horror. I have always thought blogs to be terribly self-indulgent, especially since I heard Bloggers described as “people who love the sight of their own voice”.

But of course it is a much easier and convenient way of publicising yourself, and I wish I’d thought of it before.

So anyway, just to let you know that this is where I’ll be holding regular love-ins with the sight of my own voice from now on, and where you can do the same by using the clever “comment” facility.

To get things started I’ve added a couple of my previous postings to the archive, so it looks like I’ve been hip for longer.

Here’s to the modern world! (Although if you ever see me on Twitter you’ll know I’ve been killed and replaced by a 12-year-old).

Amazon Madness and the Mayo Bounce

2009-04-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

A word of advice to first-time authors from a first-time author. Don't follow the progress of your book sales on Amazon - that way madness lies.

Even my editor says she doesn't understand why one minute you are sitting pretty at 1,234 in the ratings, the next you are in the pit of obscurity at 198,853, the next you're up to 13,107.

How does it work? How many actual book sales equals respectability? Or is there just some bloke at Amazon randomly generating numbers? Keeping tabs on your rating for any length of time is a gut-wrenching emotional rollercoaster where you imagine yourself to be a best-seller only to be flung back among the dead men. Avoid at all costs.

Having said that, this week I was on the Simon Mayo Book Panel where BAIT received some extremely generous reviews.

Within minutes of the show ending, my rating had rocketed from 174,000 to 238, and the book had cracked the Top 10 Thriller chart.

Quite how many sales that equates to only Amazon can tell, but there's a lot to be said for the Mayo Bounce.

By now I'm probably down to 170,000 again. But, whatever it meant, it was nice while it lasted.

Dividing One's Time.

2009-04-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

I’m busy writing Machete, the third in the Jake & Jouma series, which is due for publication in December.

Over the last few days, however, I’ve been correcting proofs for Burn, which is out at the end of June. For someone who, in the course of going from my office in the attic to the kitchen can forget why, this has been a deeply confusing time.

Let’s hope that one of these days I’ll be one of those writers who are rich enough to produce just one book a year. The sort who spends the other nine months flitting between the many homes they own around the world.

I’ve always thought the line “Fred Bloggs divides his time between Tuscany and Los Angeles” looks really cool beneath their Mario Testino author portrait on the dust jacket.

Now I realise it’s also a coded message to other writers that here is a guy who’s made it. It’s the literary equivalent of parking a big red Maerati in the driveway when your neighbour’s got a beat-up Honda Civic.

Part of the proof-correcting job has been to update my own paltry biography. It has been sorely tempting to write “since the publication of Bait Nick Brownlee divides his time between Monaco, Provence and Aspen”.

One must be realistic, however. Which is why I shall continue to divide my time between my attic office and the kitchen until such time as Ridley Scott buys the rights to my books.

The Master Storyteller

2009-04-18T11:35:00.000-07:00

“Filibustering” is a well-known piece of political chicanery in which a speaker attempts to kill off a debate by talking non-stop until time runs out.

After watching him in action during the 5 Live Book Review I can confirm that the former MP and now peer of the realm Jeffrey Archer is a master of this dark art.

Archer’s latest blockbuster Paths of Glory was one of the books myself, Joel Morris and Boyd Hilton were due to dissect on the Simon Mayo book review.

Outside the studio, however, it became clear that this was news to both the Master Storyteller and his white-faced publicist, who thought they had been invited for a cosy chat with the stand-in presenter, Colin Murray.

Unfazed at the prospect of having his book torn to shreds by the often acerbic 5 Live reviewers, Archer dealt with the problem as only a politician of 40 years’ standing can – by not allowing anyone else to get a word in. It was a virtuoso performance and one that I must remember if I ever get invited back on the show.

He began – brilliantly – during the sports bulletin, interrupting a report about the Australian Grand Prix to ask his own questions of the bemused journalist, thereby extending the bulletin and eating into his own review time.

Next he was asked to give a brief précis of his novel, which is a dramatised account of the mountaineer George Mallory’s doomed attempt to conquer Everest in 1924.

When I was asked the same question when BAIT was reviewed I managed to splutter for about 30 seconds before lapsing into grateful silence.

Archer, by contrast, was still going 10 minutes later. Perhaps Colin Murray should have shut him down, but he, like us, had been reduced to a narcotic dream state by The Master Storyteller.

Suddenly it was time for the travel – and I remember catching Joel Morris’s eye and wondering the same thing: was Archer about to ask a question about the roadworks on the Hangar Lane Gyratory?

Finally the reviews could no longer be postponed. Boyd kicked off, only to find himself embroiled with Archer in a debate about the book’s cover. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Joel’s flow was similarly interrupted.

By the time it was my turn, it was nearly 3.45pm, the other featured writer, Peter Murphy, hadn’t even been mentioned, and Archer was very nearly home and dry.

Ironically, every review was positive. The Master Storyteller has written a few duds in his time, but Paths of Glory is a ripping yarn reminiscent of his Kane & Abel glory days – and he proved that he can still talk the hind legs off a donkey.

Archer has his critics, but I rather liked him. And with millions of sales around the world, the old rogue is clearly doing something right.