The Brooligan Press

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The British Horror Movie You'll Never Get to See, and Why

Last weekend found me back in Pooley Bridge. It's a village at the northern tip of Ullswater in the Lake District with a post office, a couple of pubs, a handful of tourist shops, a posh bistro, and a steamer pier. Ullswater is, for my money, the fairest of the Lakes, and the village was the model for the settlement that I called Ravens Bridge in my novel The Boat House.

It's the story of a Russian hitchhiker who goes to ground there in the 1980s, on the run from the authorities and from the Soviet-era police agent sent to track her down. She stays because the woods and lakes remind her of her Karelian homeland, a place she was forced to leave because of a growing obsession with deaths by drowning. She finds a seasonal job and a place to crash, and works hard to put down some roots.

I messed about with the place for fictional purposes, of course. I put a lakeside restaurant on the steamer pier and gifted the town a boatyard. I had form for this; it was in the adjacent valley of Martindale that I'd found the setting for my first 'proper' novel, Chimera, just a few years before, and early efforts to teach myself some basic movie skills had involved a 16mm camera, a rented shooting lodge on the Dalemain estate, and a group of press-ganged friends and coworkers.

With The Boat House I can fairly say that I suffered for my art. To research Alina's backstory I made a rail trip from Helsinki to St Petersburg and came home with a dose of Hepatitis A, courtesy of the kitchen hygiene at the Europiskaya Hotel. This made for a somewhat fevered writing process but the result, heavily edited with a cooler head, felt exciting and unique. It took a while to get published, but when the book deal came it was a good one. It wasn't long before screen rights were optioned by a respected producer, and with her I produced a treatment that snagged us Film Council development funding. By now her feature-director husband had become involved. The resulting script drew in a major studio. An A-list cinematographer was attached and a top-notch production designer - if you've ever worked in film you'll know how utterly crucial to a movie's look and tone that is - headed up to the Lakes to start finding locations. It was at this point that I found myself off the project.

What followed was a perplexing time. My unused screenplay was earning its keep as a personal sample and fetching me new work, while the producers kept on commissioning scripts from other writers. I'm not sure how many but after five I stopped counting. These weren't rewrites, but new first drafts. I didn't see them all, but I did see a couple. Here's the problem; all this time, the meter had been running. Even unmade scripts don't come cheap, and nor do feature film department heads. By the time the option expired the charges run up against the production were significant.

I can sell the book again but those turnaround fees would need to be repaid on the first day of principal photography by anyone taking on my screenplay, or any subsequent version of it. Chump change for an American studio, I know; but The Boat House is a British Picture, albeit one with a Lewtonesque vibe. It's closely bound to a landscape with a specific sense of place, and that kind of money is a budget killer for any British producer.

And that's why, barring a miracle, you'll never see the movie.

So what's prompted me to be telling you this now? Well, getting back after a four-hour walk on the hottest day of the year so far, I called into the Post Office to pick up a cold beer or two. Don't judge me, I'd earned it. The Lake District boasts a number of craft brewery labels, but one in particular caught my eye; on the front the image of an ethereal lake creature, and on the back, "By the historic Coniston Copper Mines, mythical Asrai emerge from the caves above the moonlit Levers Water. Cold and pure, these elusive creatures fear capture by man lest they fade away and turn into pools of water."

Mythical Asrai? Moonlit waters? That's pure Boat House stuff. Dang. Where was this brew when I was writing?  For inspiration I'll take it over Hep A any time.

Pooley Bridge took a severe battering in the storms and winter floods of 2015, and its charming sixteenth century river crossing was destroyed and swept away. For the short term it's been replaced by a temporary metal bridge with a permanent replacement planned for construction later in the year. A number of padlocks on the ironwork have begun to appear this season, like the ones that brought down the parapet on the Pont des Artes in Paris.

I guess if you want to hedge your bets when declaring undying love, a forever lock on a temporary bridge is the way to go.

Two New Titles from The Brooligan Press

Available now... two new trade paperback titles from The Brooligan Press.

Frankenstein's Prescription Banished to an isolated rural for killing a fellow student in a duel, Hans Schneider meets the mysterious Dr Lavenza and learns about Frankenstein's prescription—the secret of eternal life. Together, Schneider and Lavenza set out to collect the missing pieces of the formula. But they are not alone. From Germany to Rome, from Rome to Paris, to the failed and wretched Eden of an all-too-human God, a dreadful creature follows in their wake and brings destruction wherever they go.

First appearance in paperback. "A unique piece of work; fast, funny, and with a terrific sense of period and place. Frankenstein's Prescription reads like the bastard creation of Jonathan Swift and Jimmy Sangster."

The Companion A broken church window, smashed in a bid to contain the power trapped within its stained glass... The desperate sobbing of a child who isn’t there... When restoration expert Kit Farris moves into the adjoining Grange with his three daughters, how can he possibly know what dark forces his work will unleash?

Previously published as Shapeshifter, now appearing for the first time under its original title in an edition revised and expanded by the author. "An excellent book, which celebrates and transcends genre. As much family story as ghost story, a tense drama of abuse, neglect and longing... An old-fashioned ghost tale with a modern edge, consciously a tribute to M R James in its setting and atmosphere.” Neil Philip, The Times 

Buy Frankenstein's Prescription

Buy The Companion

Incoming...

The Northern Crime Quartet

A retrospective ‘umbrella title’ that’s become attached to four consecutive novels written during my publishing run with Hodder & Stoughton, just before the balance of my career tipped more toward screenwriting.

Four linked stories in a shared Northern landscape, playing variations on a theme of flawed good versus complex evil. Though it was never my intention, some were inclined to read it as a deliberate move to leave my horror/fantasy roots behind and claim a piece of the mainstream. It wasn't, but no matter. I was just looking to create different monsters.

Down River is the story of Nick Frazier and Johnny Mays, two childhood friends reunited as plainclothes police officers, one of them tragically unbalanced and ultimately dangerous. It features the promotion of Jennifer McGann from uniformed duties to CID trainee, and includes witness evidence from a teenaged hitchhiker named Lucy Ashdown.

In Nightmare, with Angel, a convicted criminal (Ryan O’Donnell) earns redemption through a self-sacrificing act that reconciles a lost child (Marianne Cadogan) with her equally lost father. Jennifer McGann is the investigating officer on her first big solo case.

Rain follows Down River’s hitchhiking teenager Lucy Ashdown to London in her murdered sister’s footsteps. She’s pursued by suspended DC Joe Lucas as a favour to her dad. She outwits Joe at every turn, but fails to see that the closer she gets to an answer, the closer she is to sharing her sister’s fate.

The Painted Bride focuses on the case of Frank Tanner, a car dealer whose wife has gone missing; no one believes he’s killed her apart from Molly Gideon, his sister-in-law. Molly’s a recovering heroin addict with no credibility, but she sacrifices everything to protect the children and bring him to justice.

They’re tales of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. The settings are Northern cities, moorland, marshes and coastline, plus the ‘80s London of Rain and Nightmare’s European angle with the fall of the Berlin Wall. In each of the stories, the violent are broken and the victims are strong. They prevail.

Showreel for 2018

Coming Soon

With a third, new collection of material to follow later in the year

The Spirit Box: first time in paperback

This is kind of exciting... following on from the mass-market publication of The Authentic William James comes the first paperback appearance of The Spirit Box, previously available in this gorgeously boxed format with a cover by Chris Moore:

The Spirit Box is closely followed by the paperback debut of The Painted Bride and then, for the first time ever, my backlist titles gathered together in a uniform edition. Not reprints, but new settings from the original texts.

Available now. You can find all these titles, plus links to the ebook editions, here.

Now in Paperback from Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble... you name it

As the Special Investigator to the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy, Sebastian Becker delivers justice to those dangerous madmen whose fortunes might otherwise place them above the law.

But in William James he faces a different challenge; to prove a man sane, so that he may hang. Did the reluctant showman really burn down a crowded pavilion with the audience inside? And if not, why is this British sideshow cowboy so determined to shoulder the blame?

The Authentic William James is the third novel to feature ex-police detective and former Pinkerton Man Sebastian Becker, joining The Kingdom of Bones and The Bedlam Detective.

Praising "this superbly crafted thriller", Kirkus Reviews named The Bedlam Detective one of their 100 Best of the Year and called it "that rare beast, a literary page turner".

MysteryTribune.Com described it as "a rare literary masterpiece for lovers of historical crime fiction."

Of The Authentic William James, author and screenwriter Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch, Afterlife, The Parts We Play) says:

"It's a blinding novel... the acerbic wit, the brilliant dialogue - the sheer spot-on elegance of the writing: the plot turns, the pin sharp beats. Always authoritative and convincing, never showy. Magnificently realised characters in a living breathing world... Absolutely stunning."
 
In their starred review of The Authentic William James, Publishers Weekly wrote:
"Gallagher gives Sebastian Becker another puzzle worthy of his quirky sleuth’s acumen in this outstanding third pre-WW1 mystery."
 

"Only bad thing about his books is that they eventually end. Brilliant.”

—Jonny Lee Miller

Five Questions

Towering insights. Answers to the great questions of life. My short interview with Lucy Hay on her Criminally Good blog.

Read it here

Winter Draws On

The Goodreads people have drawn five names from their virtual hat and it's congratulations to Stephanie, Betty, Antoinette, Beryl, and Courtney.

Signed copies of The Authentic William James are on their way.

More Brooligan Press titles and promotions will be coming soon.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Authentic William James

by Stephen Gallagher

Giveaway ends November 05, 2017.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway