BLOG TOUR: Needle Song by Russell Day #needlesongbook @rfdaze @fahrenheitpress @damppebbles
Needle Song
by Russell Day
You may remember my Cover Reveal post from back in April - if not, you can check that out HERE.
Today is my Blog Tour stop - check below for the synopsis, about the author and then a letter from Russell Day himself - a fun read about his years on a bike and why you should normally NOT read a book with a motorcycle on the cover.
It's quite an interesting read - please take a look.
Spending the night with a beautiful woman would be a good alibi, if the body in the next room wasn't her husband.
Doc Slidesmith has a habit of knowing things he shouldn’t. He knows the woman Chris Rudjer meets online is married. He knows the adult fun she’s looking for is likely to be short lived. And when her husband’s killed, he knows Chris Rudjer didn’t do it.
Only trouble is the police disagree and no one wants to waste time investigating an open and shut case.
No one except Doc.
About Russell Day:
Russell Day was born in 1966 and grew up in Harlesden, NW10 – a geographic region searching for an alibi. From an early age it was clear the only things he cared about were motorcycles, tattoos and writing. At a later stage he added family life to his list of interests and now lives with his wife and two children. He’s still in London, but has moved south of the river for the milder climate.
Although he only writes crime fiction Russ doesn’t consider his work restricted. ‘As long as there have been people there has been crime, as long as there are people there will be crime.’ That attitude leaves a lot of scope for settings and characters. One of the first short stories he had published, The Second Rat and the Automatic Nun, was a double-cross story set in a world where the church had taken over policing. In his first novel, Needle Song, an amateur detective employs logic, psychology and a loaded pack of tarot cards to investigate a death.
Russ often tells people he seldom smiles due to nerve damage, sustained when his jaw was broken. In fact, this is a total fabrication and his family will tell you he’s has always been a miserable bastard.
Note from the Author:
Back in 1981, just before I left school, I
found a copy of The Jammer’s Handbook. For those of you that don’t know, The
Jammer’s Handbook was a motorcycle parts/accessories catalogue dressed to look
like a magazine. It was printed in America and catered mainly to people looking
to modify their Harley Davidsons. What this particular copy was doing in a
newsagent in Harlesden, alongside all the copies of Woman’s Own and The Beano,
I have not a clue. But there is was. Page after page of monstrous, chrome-dripping,
road-stomping, ear-splitting Harleys. Screaming a great and glorious FUCK YOU to anyone who couldn’t see the
beauty of it all. Unforgiving god-machines, their acolytes; serious looking
men, baptised in oil and anointed with tattoo ink. Not to mention the choir of
insanely desirable woman, singing their praises in flesh as the road to
paradise unwound before them.
I was sixteen.
I was smitten.
Of course, at the time I didn’t have a
clue what I was looking at. I didn’t know a Sportster from an Electra Glide or
a swing arm from a rigid. What I did know was I wanted a motorcycle, wanted to
be one of those serious looking acolytes, hammering down Route whatever, heading out to who-the-hell-cares? Wind in my face, sun
on my back, joy in my soul.
I’ve now spent more than thirty years on
or around bikes. I’ve been baptised in oil, rain, hail, sleet and snow. I’ve
been T-boned and sideswiped by cars, I’ve been hit by a bus, ridden into a
ditch, had two bikes burst into flames and spent more time with ambulance men
than a pervert with a bandage fetish. I also found out, that despite the
promises of the various motorcycle manufacturers, being covered in road-crap,
oil and gravel-rash does not make you irresistible to woman.
I think that’s why most bikers have a lot
of tattoos. After you’ve sampled the joys of motorcycling, having someone jab a
needle into you for a couple of hours counts as light relief.
And would I change a minute of it?
Nope.
Which bring me around to the book I’m
supposed to be plugging. As you’ve probably guessed I like motorcycles. I also
like reading. But choosing a novel because it has a motorcycle on the cover is a
bad idea.
Really.
Trust me.
If you find a motorcycle in a work of
fiction, nine times out of ten, it heralds the arrival of a mindless thug or
somebody’s midlife crisis. I’ve read a lot of novels with bikes on the cover
and, to date, only three of them didn’t end up in the bin. They’re all crime
novels and they all, to one degree or another, involve bikers. The bikers
aren’t always the heroes, but they’re there in 3D, characters rather than cut
and paste clichƩs. In no particular order those novels are:
1.
Billie Morgan by Joolz Denby
2.
13 by Steve Wilson
3.
Against the Wind by J F Freedman
With Needle
Song I’m hoping that list might make it up to four.
Be lucky,
Russell Day
Thanks so much for being a part of the blog tour, Chandra x
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