THE STRANGE MICHAEL FOLMER AFFAIR.

THE STRANGE MICHAEL FOLMER AFFAIR.

A little about the book - but not too much - and why it is self-published.

BEGINNINGS......BY THE AUTHOR.

The "Folmer" story-line is really in two parts: the modern-day Jack the Ripper copy-cat serial killer - and the fingerprints he leaves which match those of a man hanged for murder in the fifties, all of which presents no end of misery for the main character, Detective Chief Inspector Michael Gregory of New Scotland Yard. As far as I knew, this had never been done before and about two years ago I decided to link the two into one book and see what happened. I had already got another 340 page "Gregory" manuscript completed (and unpublished) and was only too well aware of the problems which exist with publishers and their attitudes towards unpublished authors but like all idiot writers I decided to persevere and managed to get a lot of "Folmer" down during a two week holiday in Cyprus.

My dear friend of many years James Morton (the "Gangland" series and a host of other best-sellers) was very enthusiastic and kept me glued to the PC even in the blackest moments, and eventually when the thing was as good as I thought it was going to get we tried a few agents and publishers. Oh, yes, they liked it, they said but "it wasn't for them", their lists were full, or they just were not taking on any new authors. Depression set in and James encouraged and nagged - during which time I lost count of the Big Brother chuckouts, illiterate footballers (and/or chavvy wives), retired gangsters/murderers and all manner of really no-account people with little to say (and less knowledge of how to get it down) who managed to get on to Waterstones shelves, none of which served to alleviate my feeling of misery and ennuie.

I suppose what annoyed me more than anything was my certain knowledge that the thing was a good read and that as such it was worthy of publication. Now, I was well aware that it was far from being a literary classic, but as material of the type goes it was original, readable and reasonably written. There is no porn (although violence is necessarily and integral part of the genre}, there is some bad language - most London coppers are prone to a degree of profanity from time to time - but, all in all, if a reader bought a copy for a holiday read it would keep him well entertained during those boring days in a deckchair on the beach - always supposing, of course, that crime fiction is his bag!