Böcker av Adam Wilderness

The Maltese Falcon, this isn't. Tiffany Herring, the squinting transgender private eye from Cleethorpes, visits an old college friend in Blackpool and is at once thrust into a murder mystery. Be warned, dear reader; you will not be treated to a cosy seaside holiday.If ever a thug deserved to be struck dead by a blow from a brass penguin ornament, that hunk of toxic masculinity was Barney Sexton. His terrorised son and daughter, his battered ex-wife, all had commendable motives. But such colourful crooks as Jimmy the Jemmy, Freddie Face and Mandy the Hedgehog are also after the briefcase full of heroin that was last seen in Barney's hands.Tiffany goes underground in this surreal spoof on American tough guy detective fiction, at some risk to her life and sanity, to solve the dastardly crime. Why not see if you can solve it first, from the safety of your armchair?

Tiffany Herring, a squinting transgender private eye from Cleethorpes, her nervous husband Michael and their street-wise assistant Lark investigate the brutal murder of Maurice Fairfield, a wealthy playboy known to lovers and enemies as the Lincoln Imp.What was the motive? A disturbed burglary? A failed blackmail plot? Sexual jealousy? All are possible. Suspects include Harvey P. Kendall, a tiresome pop star, the inept housebreaker Roddy Harris and two femmes either of whom might have been fatale. No spoof cosy murder mystery would be complete without a butler, so Charles Milton, the dead man's valet, is also playing a deep and devious game.Inspector Partridge, the official detective, has arrested half the dodgy citizens of Lincoln and got nowhere. Tiffany will doubtless find the killer by studying the masonry of Lincoln Cathedral. But why not see if you can get there first and solve the murder yourself?

The killing of Craig Donovan, gambling addict, womaniser and blackmailer, was no ordinary crime. Some expert took great trouble to frame Donovan's wife, Jeanette. But Tiffany Herring is no ordinary amateur sleuth. Her transgender past, bohemian friends and lust for detective fiction enable her to unravel clues that baffle her father, a pigeon-fancying police inspector with a heart of gold and a brain of feathers.Jeanette's lover Michael seeks to save her neck with Tiffany's help. Together they pursue vanishing witnesses and lying suspects while their own relationship grows more entangled.An urban whodunnit with romantic twists, this novel is set in a dystopian near future where a cheerful hangman awaits those convicted of murder. Killer and detectives stalk one another through the surreal landscape of post-modern Grimsby, with its sinister dock tower, derelict ice factory and eccentric workfare schemes.If you've had enough of gritty police procedurals, try this affectionate spoof on classic tough guy gangster novels and cosy murder mysteries. See if you can solve the crime yourself.

Tiffany Herring, a transgender private eye from Cleethorpes, takes a holiday with her husband Michael on the windswept Cumbrian coast. And sure enough, in the best tradition of cosy murder mysteries, a body is discovered down a disused mine near to the remote village inn called The Last Judgement.The local police are convinced that the murder was committed by an ex-soldier afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder, a loner who will not speak in his defence. But Tiffany uncovers clues that suggest he was framed. Nor is the victim, a London investment banker travelling in the middle of nowhere with a briefcase of money, all that he seems.Against a desolate backdrop of tidal marshes, Tiffany questions the evasive denizens of The Last Judgement and seeks the truth.She can be relied on to find the real killer. But why not see if you can beat her to it and solve the crime yourself.

For some of us, childhood is only a nightmare away. When Stephen Connolly, a self-taught artist, drops out of Cambridge University to paint in the slums of 1970s and 1980s Liverpool, it soon gets much closer than that. He struggles against both anti-Semitism and his brutal Jewish mother, against merciless poverty and corrupting affluence. He is pulled apart by two passions, for bed-mate and for soul-mate. The prostitute Anna teaches him urban survival and the petite lecturer Jenny clings to him like a mad mollusc to an unstable rock.The city is in turmoil from mass unemployment and riots. But the greatest threats to Stephen's sanity are the monsters and imaginary playmates that emerge from the fog of his solitary, haunted childhood.Rough, sinister, bohemian, the story battles its way to a happy ending through tragedy, grim humour and the bastard miracle of love. Try this for something scarier and more hard-edged than the average historical romance.

Tiffany Herring, the famous transgender private eye from Cleethorpes, is called in to debunk the supposed Skeleton Strangler at Lawrence Cardew's suburban mansion in Liverpool. But she uncovers a world of murder, bizarre sex games, buried family secrets and blackmail.The murders are linked by a cryptic note left on the bodies: 'Mondrian used masking tape.' Mondrian was a Dutch abstract painter. The killer appears to be a less artistic psychopath with an elusive sense of humour. When the local police are baffled, Tiffany sets to work. Cardew, his daughter and his house guests are suspects. But so are a vengeful ex-mistress, a Polish labourer and domestics who might almost have been hired for their suspicious behaviour.Tiffany solves this spoof cosy murder mystery from the mean streets of Liverpool. Why not see if you can solve it yourself from your armchair?

Should you have the bad luck to be murdered, you could do a lot worse than get your case investigated by Tiffany Herring, a squinting transgender rehab counsellor and private eye from Cleethorpes.Tiffany is recovering from Carer's Burnout in Leighton Buzzard when the body of Donald Creed is found by her hapless fiancé Michael and her seductive cousin Peter at a nearby farmhouse. Nothing ever goes on in Leighton Buzzard, as the proverb says. But the case is soon complicated by ghost-hunters, an eccentric historian with a flintlock pistol, a femme fatale who intrigues Michael, and rumours of a gold coin hoard hidden years ago at the farm by Creed's miserly grandfather.Trust Tiffany and Michael to solve the mystery, despite the risk to their lives, their sanity and their relationship. Unless, of course, you can solve it before them. Why not try your hand?

When is a murder not a murder? When Howard Oakhill, an eccentric archaeologist, vanishes from behind a bolted toilet door in Southport on his stag night, leaving only a bloodstain and an empty pair of shoes. From alien abduction to second thoughts about the bride, from a bungled prank to homicide by a jealous professional rival, theories and suspects abound.Oakhill's relatives squabble like vultures over his absurd last will and testament. Then parts of a carefully dismantled skeleton appear in lakes around Southport, a town better known for cosy seaside holidays than for grisly murders. Some joker is laughing at the discomfiture of the plodding Inspector Fowler and of Doctor Pearson, the cheerily gruesome forensics expert.It takes the unconventional detective skills of Tiffany Herring, a squinting transgender private eye from Cleethorpes, to unravel the mystery. Unless, dear reader, you manage to solve it before her. The race is on.

Suppose that Satan has himself elected Mayor of a sleepy English seaside resort, on a pledge to clean up the streetwalkers, the beggars and the homeless. His methods are whimsical and quirky, but he knows villainy like he knows the back of his claw.Stood in his path are Helen, a tipsy transgender prostitute, Paul, an unemployed college teacher with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and a bunch of misfits that includes a poker-playing priest and an old-style rat-catcher. Should be no contest really. After all, the poor long-suffering author is murdered in Chapter Twenty-Two.But this dystopian and darkly comic fantasy novel defies logic and battles its way through low life crises and spoof horror to a hard-won happy ending. This is literary fiction, though not quite as we have been used to it. Try it now for a very unusual read.

If you can't see Mr Punch, that means he's right behind you. Now. Don't you dare look around.Elements of fantasy and mild horror, dark comedy and perverse optimism, mingle in these bizarre stories. Make sense of them at your peril. They are linked by such surreal figures as Tommy Flyblow, a philosophical tramp, and Mr Punch, a grinning psychopath who breaks into the 'real' world from childhood nightmares and the English seaside.Transgender bohemians, a Paraguayan giant anteater, Pepper's ghost, Jenny Greenteeth and a raving postmodernist street preacher could also turn up. Even bird-headed men seem at home in this warped but recognisable view of our appalling times.This book is for anyone not afraid to wonder what lies beyond the spectacle of normality. If you have a clue what's happening, you can explain it to such baffled observers as Tommy Flyblow, Cute Max and, of course, Caroline the dustbin man. Why not try your luck with it now?

We are all homeless beggars. Everybody is searching for comfort, money or love. Even you and I.But Martin is a gentle tramp on a strange quest. With his world in a rucksack, he roams England in pursuit of Care in the Community and of Old Stompy, the stuffed Patagonian giant sloth donated long ago to a museum by his eccentric grandfather. Let us follow his progress as he wheedles and bluffs, helps and hinders, uses and is used.He settles for now in Liverpool, where he is torn between three women. Kathy is his former teenage sweetheart, devious and alcoholic. Alison is a scruffy bisexual drop-out, loyal but accident-prone. Fran is a neurotic housewife, oddly convinced that life has a meaning. Worse still, Martin must survive the friendly advances of Mr Snowman and his gang of ham-fisted cocaine dealers.Over the unexpected resolution of these conflicts looms the smirking, bear-like, enigmatic figure of the giant sloth. Could Old Stompy know the answers? Perhaps true love, safety and the community are still out there. Try this unusual homeless romance to share in the search.