#GuestPost #Guestpostseries by Alan Camrose, author of Lost In Plain Sight (Part V) @AlanCamrose / Books Teacup and Reviews

Hello readers! Today I’m pleased to share last Part of guest post series by Alan Camrose, author of Lost In Plain Sight this month. If in case you missed first and second part of this series here is the link – Part I | Part II| Part III | Part IV

Over to author…

Firstly, thanks to Yesha for agreeing to me guest-posting on the site. Much appreciated, and I hope that you all enjoy my Blog posts which are a sideways look at my writing and my book.

The Gallery on my website (www.alancamrose.com), and my Blog generally, is intended to be a place that shows a bit about me as well as stuff about my work.

I have just published my first novel, “Lost In Plain Sight”, a fantasy-thriller set in Brighton, full of action, magic, humour, where Sam, Pagoda and Meyra are on the case to track a demonic killer and find more than they bargained for. (Since Pagoda is a cat, she’d like to be in the case.) They encounter among other things a goblin fatale, a werewolf with exquisite dentistry and a sat-nav with personality issues. I’d love you to join me by the seaside for some ice cream and mayhem…

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Part 5 of 5

Pier Pressure – Brighton Beach Backdrop

Pinkie Brown is a psychotic and ruthless underworld figure in Graham Greene’s classic 1938 novel, Brighton Rock (and the classic movie in 1948 (Richard Attenborough), and the re-make in 2010 with among others Helen Mirren – Official Trailer. Pinkie would be an unlikely poster-boy for the Brighton tourist trade. The brawling tribes of mods and rockers portrayed in Sixties Brighton in the movie Quadrophenia wouldn’t be on their shortlist either. (Official trailer) To give you an idea of the menace that is in this book and the movies, imagine you’re the teddy bear – are you feeling lucky, Teddy?

The city has not otherwise featured to a great degree in literature or movies (Brighton Beach Memoirs doesn’tcount), but does pride itself on its eclectic cultural scene. As an example, I went to see Mark Knopfler play at the Brighton Centre a while ago: magic! It hosts a challenging marathon (which I have witnessed, I confess, as a supporter rather than a participant), and the legendary annual Brighton Naked Bike Ride where riders struggle to stow their gear. Combined with among other things the Palace Pier, the towering Needle observation deck (the British Airways i360) and the barking mad architecture of the Brighton Pavilion, there’s clearly a lot to see.

I have been going to Brighton throughout my life with my parents, often to the pitch & putt on the front when I was a kid, and achieving a keen grasp of ’99’ tasting. Then I went with friends, and now family and friends. The city has changed from a more traditional seaside town of ice cream, sticky rock and fish & chips to the newer, more wide-ranging, place to be.

I found that it was a natural choice for me to use Brighton and its local area as the main backdrop to my new fantasy-thriller, Lost In Plain Sight. I was drawn to it by my familiarity with the place, the excitement that it still gives me to go down there and crunch over the beach and visit the Regency on the seafront for some hake and chips. And an edge to the place, created by the ebb and flow of visitors to the city. Never the same twice.

I think the West Pier is probably my favourite landmark in Brighton. Visit the webpage and you’ll see its allure. It used to be an elegant slice of seaside glamour, then fires and the elements conspired to bring it down before its redevelopment, leaving what now looks like a black rib-cage hovering in and above the sea, no longer a counterpoint to the Palace Pier, more a dwindling marker of past glory.

I describe it in my book:

The sea and the sky danced on the horizon, impossible to tell apart, the view broken only by the brooding, spidery remains of the burnt-out West Pier, soaking up sparkles from the water with grim determination.

All those years of my walking along the waterfront, visiting the Palace Pier, then further along to reach the Bandstand and the remains of the West Pier. all eventually coalescing into scenes in my book.

Pinkie would have attacked it with sledgehammers to finish it off, but it sits there now, crumbling into the sea. It’s a symbol of keeping going against all the odds. Like the investigation team in my book.

And now it looks like the West Pier will rise from those flames and rival its neighbour again.

That mirrors the way Brighton has changed and re-shaped itself over the years, its history a splendid backdrop for, well, everything.

Cheers,

Alan

Alan Camrose

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About Book:

This novel is a contemporary fantasy-thriller set in the UK around Brighton. There’s action, suspense and humour. And useful insights on cats. And magic. And magical cats.
Sam Franklin is a wizard from the real Magic Circle. Pagoda – is his cat familiar (or is it the other way round?). Meyra is a stroppy elf with teenage angst issues even after forty years in her teens. They are drawn into tracking a demonic killer on England’s south coast. The demon is not just at the seaside for the greasy doughnuts: its masters prey on the poor and vulnerable in society with the terrifying prospect of ancient dark magic (or rather Ma gic, the dangerous word with six letters, one invisible and silent) running wild once more.
Sam and Pagoda find themselves dragged into the plight of the local homeless community, Meyra into the vast dangers of drug-fuelled excess, all reach the same place with the clock ticking and cultists chanting, waiting for a terrible conspiracy to come of age.
But all this pales into insignificance before such questions as: can the three oddballs work together to save the day and get home in time for a good grooming? And why does Sam keep having a worrying urge to shred sofas, chase rodents and cough up hairballs? Why is Meyra worried about whether her Moncler Calypsos look good on her during a spot of burglary. And last but absolutely not least, why does Pagoda fret about the handball rule while she curls up in tiny places and tries to get some hard-earned (by cat standards) sleep?