Nurse? The Screens ...

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman will be running a two-day course called Secrets of Writing a Bestseller in November, although at this point I think the initial course has sold out and a second is being planned. Said secrets, if you’re prepared to read between the lines, may well be available to the careful reader of Bateman’s latest tome, THE PRISONER OF BRENDA (Headline), which is the fourth in the award-winning Mystery Man series and about which the blurb elves have been wibbling thusly:

When notorious gangster ‘Fat Sam’ Mahood is murdered, the chief suspect is arrested nearby. But he seems to have suffered a breakdown. Incarcerated in a mental institution, he’s known only as the Man in the White Suit. The suspect remains an enigma until Nurse Brenda calls on Mystery Man, former patient and owner of No Alibis, Belfast’s finest mystery bookshop, to bring his powers of investigation to bear ... However, before our hero can even begin, the Man in the White Suit is arrested for the murder of a fellow patient. But is he a double murderer or a helpless scapegoat? Intrigue, conspiracy, and ancient Latin curses all combine to give the Small Bookseller with No Name his most difficult case to date.

  THE PRISONER OF BRENDA is published on October 25th, and if the previous three Mystery Man novels are any guide, it will very probably be the funniest slice of crime / mystery you’ll read all year.
  Bateman, by the way, is opening the Kildare Readers’ Festival this year, on Friday, October 12th. The event is free but advance booking is advised.