War Beer

The launch for KING OF THE ROAD was pretty good last night. As book launches went it was probably not in the "legendary" bracket. If Chuck Palahniuk or Ian Rankin had a book launch, it would not be like this. They would have adoring fans and celebrity guests and queues around the block. And champagne and balloons. And cocaine and high class hookers. And an after-launch party at The Ivy, or something. But hey, they're them and I'm me. We didn't have the hookers and coke but we had wine and little crunchy things, which could conceivably have been heavily disguised rocks of crack if you were tripping hard and deep into the realms of psychosis. No A-listers attended but Steve Kane turned up, who is quite well known in the Bishop's Stortford area, I gather. And who needs The Ivy when you've got The King's Head, with it's wide range of peanuts and crisps and its "war beer", as it was known?

Many thanks to Ben and Maz and Sarah and everyone else at Ottakars. Anyone in Worcester, go an buy a book from them! (KING OF THE ROAD is up there in the "crime" section, by the way. Ahem.) And thanks to everyone who came, if you should by chance find your way to this here blog. And Steve, I've forgotten what that record was called.

(Note to self: if you find that most of your audience consists of women from the local book club, try to choose a passage to read that features slightly fewer swear words and crude sexual references. Just a thought.)

Next event: Left Coast Crime. I'm doing a couple of potentially momentous panels there which I'll blog about shortly.