A Beastly Business (1982)
John Blackburn
Book Description
Bill Easter is a petty criminal with a little problem of a £2000 overdraft that he has no means of covering. Fortunately, the bank manager has a problem of his own and needs Bill’s help: the corpse of Henry Oliver, a very hairy 350 lb. mass murderer known as the “Mad Vicar,” is decomposing in his basement and he wants it removed. Among Oliver’s papers, Bill finds a tantalizing reference to treasure that leads him to the Scottish isle of Rhona, where he meets the intrepid General Charles Kirk of British Foreign Intelligence and the arrogant adventurer J. Moldon Mott. Kirk has uncovered a bizarre plot involving the KGB, ex-Nazi mad scientists, and the “mad monk” Rasputin, while Mott is hot on the trail of a stolen gold treasure. And when they discover the island is being overrun by werewolves, their trip to the remote island will become a very beastly business indeed!
A Beastly Business (1982) features the trademark blend of mystery, adventure, and horror that made John Blackburn (1923-1993) one of the most acclaimed British thriller writers of his generation. One of the scarcest of Blackburn’s books and long unobtainable, A Beastly Business is reprinted here for the first time ever.
John Blackburn
Book Description
Bill Easter is a petty criminal with a little problem of a £2000 overdraft that he has no means of covering. Fortunately, the bank manager has a problem of his own and needs Bill’s help: the corpse of Henry Oliver, a very hairy 350 lb. mass murderer known as the “Mad Vicar,” is decomposing in his basement and he wants it removed. Among Oliver’s papers, Bill finds a tantalizing reference to treasure that leads him to the Scottish isle of Rhona, where he meets the intrepid General Charles Kirk of British Foreign Intelligence and the arrogant adventurer J. Moldon Mott. Kirk has uncovered a bizarre plot involving the KGB, ex-Nazi mad scientists, and the “mad monk” Rasputin, while Mott is hot on the trail of a stolen gold treasure. And when they discover the island is being overrun by werewolves, their trip to the remote island will become a very beastly business indeed!
A Beastly Business (1982) features the trademark blend of mystery, adventure, and horror that made John Blackburn (1923-1993) one of the most acclaimed British thriller writers of his generation. One of the scarcest of Blackburn’s books and long unobtainable, A Beastly Business is reprinted here for the first time ever.
reviews
“Our only current writer who can induce such terror as the Grimm Brothers did.” – Times Literary Supplement
“He is certainly the best British novelist in his field and deserves the widest recognition.” – Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
“[A] stylish, genuinely chilling author ... undoubtedly one of England’s best practicing novelists in the tradition of the thriller novel.” – St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers
“He is certainly the best British novelist in his field and deserves the widest recognition.” – Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
“[A] stylish, genuinely chilling author ... undoubtedly one of England’s best practicing novelists in the tradition of the thriller novel.” – St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers
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BOOK DETAILS
ISBN: 1939140846 ISBN-13: 978-1939140845 $16.99 US, 162 pp. Trade paper Published 2013 |
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
John Blackburn was born in 1923 in the village of Corbridge, England, the second son of a clergyman. He started attending Haileybury College near London in 1937, but his education was interrupted by the onset of World War II; the shadow of the war, and that of Nazi Germany, would later play a role in many of his works. He served as a radio officer during the war in the Mercantile Marine from 1942 to 1945, and resumed his education afterwards at Durham University, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1949. Blackburn taught for several years after that, first in London and then in Berlin, and married Joan Mary Clift in 1950. Returning to London in 1952, he took over the management of Red Lion Books.
It was there that Blackburn began writing, and the immediate success in 1958 of his first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, led him to take up a career as a writer full-time. He and his wife also maintained an antiquarian bookstore, a secondary career that would inform some of Blackburn’s later work. A prolific author, Blackburn would write nearly 30 novels between 1958 and 1985; most of these were horror and thrillers, but also included one historical novel set in Roman times, The Flame and the Wind (1967). He died in 1993.
It was there that Blackburn began writing, and the immediate success in 1958 of his first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, led him to take up a career as a writer full-time. He and his wife also maintained an antiquarian bookstore, a secondary career that would inform some of Blackburn’s later work. A prolific author, Blackburn would write nearly 30 novels between 1958 and 1985; most of these were horror and thrillers, but also included one historical novel set in Roman times, The Flame and the Wind (1967). He died in 1993.