Three years have passed since Royston Blake left Mangel for Parpham Mental Hospital, his unstable mind finally entrusted to professionals. He served his stretch, and now he’s out, pronounced “cured” by the Doc. But a lot can change in three years, even in Mangel. Blake’s gal, Sal, has gone off and had a kid for one. His kid…whom Blake’s never even met. Not to mention that most of his old haunts, including Hoppers, are gone, replaced by a gleaming new shopping mall. But like the Doc says, change isn’t always for the better. A mysterious opposition group calling itself the “Old Guard” has expressed its displeasure with the development in the local newspaper. Now words are no longer enough, and they want Blake to enforce their message the old-fashioned way. But Blake just wants to do right by his son, a simple dream made all the more complicated once he realizes Mangel won’t let him go without a fight. Charlie Williams has upped the stakes with King of the Road, a new twist on his violent, darkly comedic chronicles of Mangel.
Born in Worcester (UK) in 1971, Charlie Williams has written six books that have been published in five languages. Most belong in the crime category but there is often overlap with horror, sf and just plain weird, and no real game-plan to fit into any genre at all.
The first three - DEADFOLK, BOOZE AND BURN* and KING OF THE ROAD - are a trilogy set in Mangel, the provincial town from hell, narrated by nightclub doorman Royston Blake. Each was written so it could be read independently of the others or in any order.
STAIRWAY TO HELL is about a pub singer who finds out his body hosts the transmigrated soul of David Bowie, courtesy of some 70s voodoo by Jimmy Page. Although fiction, the story was based around true events. Go to charliewilliams.net and check the Stairway to Hell page for more on that.
2011 sees GRAVEN IMAGE (a novella about a brothel bouncer with a debt to pay) and ONE DEAD HEN (a fourth Mangel book, making it a tetralogy... but trilogy sounds better).
All of the books have received great reviews, some of which you can read here on Amazon. But steer clear if you hate swearing or love political correctness.
* original UK title: FAGS AND LAGER
