1976, 1968, and all that...

OK, I’ll keep this brief, because while my substack is called Chasing Mercury News & Stuff, I admit that the word “stuff” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

76: A Novella isn’t related in any way to the world of Mila and Bradley. But it is published today in ebook and paperback. If you fancy a journey upriver – not so much into the heart of darkness as the whole idea of what it means to remember a moment in the past – please do take a look. I doubt the readers will come swarming for this one, like those ladybirds/ladybugs in 1976. But early reviews are very promising…

Which brings me back to 1968, and DROPOUT, the sequel to the Chasing Mercury trilogy. I recently completed the first draft of the first half of it and am breaking ground on Part Two, which includes a scene at a graveside, I’m sorry to say…

Now that 76 is finished, I’ll be cracking on with it. I promise to keep you informed!

P.S.

It’s nagging at me that I just said 76 isn’t related in any way to Chasing Mercury. It really isn’t. But because it’s by the same author and it comes from the same place – my childhood, my family – it so happens that it contains mention of the following:

• ‘Schmeissers’, Tommy-guns & Stens

• Nazi scientists

• Berlin & Hitler’s bunker

• The Normandy landings

• Rifle shots ricocheting off rubble

• Tank traps

• The Falaise Pocket

• The Guns of Navarone

• Sheltering from air raids

• Motor Torpedo Boats and landing craft

• Sneaky undercover investigations

• Unfathomable Soviet schemes…