Olympic nuttiness

Wasn’t the opening of the Olympics great?  After the fabulous spectacle Beijing provided (those giant footsteps approaching the stadium were breathtaking) it was difficult to imagine how it could be topped.  Well, it wasn’t topped.  Instead, the director, Danny Boyle, took up off in a completely different direction, telling the story of how Britain came to be Britain in a wonderfully human and quirky way.  It was barmy to have real sheep and shire horses round the Glastonbury Tor, with Isambard Kingdom Brunel striding on to the Tor to declaim (as if they were his own thoughts) a speech from The Tempest. Barmy and totally right.  It was pretty economical as well, you know?  Shakespeare, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Britain’s greatest Shakespearian actor, known to millions as Gilderoy Lockhart, all in one neat package.

The fact that Gilderoy Lockhart was there looked forward neatly to Joanna Rowling herself, reading about Neverland from Peter Pan and to have fifty Mary Poppins and a gigantic Voldemort seamlessly woven in was star stuff.

I’ve never seen an Olympic opening with so much humour – with any humour, in fact – and to have so many human voices and little stories integrated in to the big story gave us all a way in to the story Danny Boyle was telling.  Goodness knows what they thought in Beijing of Michael Fish, famously telling us that “A woman rang the BBC and said she’d heard there was a hurricane on the way...” but we all cracked up and as for Rowan Atkinson going off onto a dream of winning chariots of fire...

The star of the show had to be the Queen, though.  The shock when she turned round at her desk and was revealed to be the absolute honest to goodness, hundred percent gold Queen and not (as we expected) Helen Mirren, was just one of those unforgettable moments.  And, as the sequence progressed, wasn’t it great how it was obviously so much easier for the Queen to keep a straight face than Mr Bond himself?  Winston Churchill clearly approved and you can’t say fairer than that.

Frankie's Letter is on Amazon!

Here's the cover of the new book!  It was up on Amazon on Friday and I think it  looks really good.  When I first thought about the title,  a friend wondered if "Frankie's Letter" made it sound a bit too much like a saga.  Hmm.  It isn't a saga, of course, it's a First World War spy thriller, and I'd hate to give anyone the impression we're in Catherine Cookson land.    The thing is, that the whole story is about Frankie's letter - what it is, where it is and, most importantly, who is Frankie.  So the title stayed, because I liked it and it's directly related to the story.  There's a line in the first chapter said by a bloke who's just about to pop his clogs.  "Frankie's letter... Read Frankie's letter."  I hope you do!

Frankie's Letter

I got the proofs through for the new book, Frankie’s Letter, in the week.  These are the printed proofs, which means I’ve got a really good idea of what the finished book will look like, which is, I have to admit, really exciting!

Frankie’s Letter is a bit of a new venture.  It’s not a Jack story – don’t worry, he’ll be back! – but a First World Wat spy thriller, with a new hero, the rather fanciable Dr Anthony Brooke.  Anthony studied in Berlin before the war and, in consequence, is an expert German speaker, a fact that makes him very useful indeed to the infant Secret Service.

I originally self-published Frankie’s Letter on Kindle, so I was absolutely delighted when Severn House bought it.  I mean, I love my Kindle and read and buy lots of books on it, but there’s something about a real book with proper pages that can’t be replicated.

Although Frankie’s Letter is set only a few years before Jack’s finest hours, it’s interesting how those few years bring a whole different tone to the writing.  It definitely has a pre-modern feel, in a way that the 1920’s books just don’t.  It’s a very sort of Edwardian feel that has somehow come out on the page without me being very conscious of exactly where the differences are.  Anyway, roll on September and you’ll be able to judge for yourself.  I haven’t seen the cover yet.  That’s the next good bit!