Novel-length eBooks by Chris Dolley at BVC

French Fried

Animals behaving badly, other people's misfortunes and the most bizarre true crime story ever. French Fried is the unfortunately true account of Chris Dolley’s first eight months in France and has been described as ‘A Year in Provence with Miss Marple and Gerald Durrell.’

Just when Chris and Shelagh think nothing more could possibly go wrong, they discover that Chris’s identity has been stolen and their life savings – all the money from their house sale in England that was going to finance their new life in France – had disappeared. A bank account had been opened in Chris’s name in Spain to take the proceeds.

Then they’re abandoned by the police forces of four countries who all insist the crime belongs to someone else's jurisdiction. The French say it’s an Irish crime as that’s where the money was held. The Irish say it’s French as that’s where all the correspondence came from. The British say it’s nothing to do with them even though forged British passports were used to open the bank account in Spain. And the Spanish are on holiday – and can’t even think about investigating any bank account for at least four weeks.

So Chris has to solve the crime himself. But unlike fictional detectives he has an 80 year-old mother-in-law and an excitable puppy who insist they come along if he's going anywhere interesting - like a stakeout.

(Some of you may have read extracts from this book when it was known as Nous Sommes Anglais)

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What Ho, Automaton!

Wodehouse Steampunk!

What Ho, Automaton! chronicles the adventures of Reggie Worcester, gentleman consulting detective, and his gentleman’s personal gentle-automaton, Reeves.

Reggie, an avid reader of detective fiction, knows two things about solving crime: One, the guilty party is always the person you least suspect. And, two, The Murders in the Rue Morgue would have been solved a lot sooner had the detective the foresight to ask the witnesses if they’d seen any orang-utans recently. Reeves needs all his steam-powered cunning and intellect to curb the young master’s excessive flights of fancy. And prevent him from getting engaged.

The book contains two stories set in an alternative 1903 where an augmented Queen Victoria is still on the throne and automata are a common sight below stairs.

What Ho, Automaton! - an 8,000 word novelette of how the two met *.

Something Rummy This Way Comes – a 41,000 word novella chronicling their first case. When Reggie discovers that four debutantes have gone missing in the first month of The London Season and, for fear of scandal, none of the families have called the police, he feels compelled to investigate. With the help of Reeves’s giant brain and extra helpings of fish, he conducts an investigation that only a detective of rare talent could possibly envisage.

Mystery, Zeppelins, Aunts and Humour. A steam-powered Wodehouse pastiche.

*(The novelette What Ho, Automaton! was previously published in the anthology, The Shadow Conspiracy II)

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Medium Dead

Chris Dolley

Medium Dead is a fun urban fantasy chronicling the crime fighting adventures of Brenda – a reluctant medium – and Brian – a Vigilante Demon with an impish sense of humour. Think Stephanie Plum with magic and a dash of Carl Hiaasen.

Brenda Steele is smart, funny and out of her depth. A Vigilante Demon called Brian wants her to find murdered spirits and help him track down their killers. But Brian doesn't just catch criminals, he likes to play with them first, and make the punishment fit the crime. As he tells Brenda, “if all you did was turn up, capture the bad guy then leave – century after century – you'd die of boredom.”

He's also reckless – his last partner died during one of his takedowns.

Along the way, Brenda discovers that Brian isn't as old, or as powerful, as he led her to believe. He might even be human. Whereas the murderer they're hunting, and the child he's holding prisoner, might not.

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An Unsafe Pair of Hands

Chris Dolley

An Unsafe Pair of Hands is a quirky murder mystery set in rural England charting the descent and rise of a detective on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Peter Shand is the 'safe pair of hands' – a high-flying police administrator seconded to a quiet rural CID team to gain the operational experience he needs for promotion. On his second day he’s thrust into a high-profile murder case. A woman’s body is discovered in an old stone circle – with another woman buried beneath her.

The pressure on Shand is enormous. The case is baffling. There appears to be no link between the two crimes. The media is clamouring for answers. And Shand’s convinced his wife is having an affair with someone called Gabriel.

Which just happens to be the name of the two chief suspects. Both are womanisers, and both mention a mystery woman – who sounds suspiciously like Shand’s wife – as their alibi. The pressure builds. Shand can’t sleep, a local journalist is out to discredit him, his wife is about to be dragged into the case and then, goaded at a press conference about lack of progress, he invents a lead. And keeps on lying – to the press, his boss, his team – telling himself that he'll solve the case before anyone finds out.

And then another murder occurs. And had there been a third? Shand begins to doubt his ability. He's desperate, increasingly unpredictable, pursued by an amorous psychic, and somehow gaining a reputation for arresting livestock.

Which will break first? The case, or Shand?

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Resonance

Chris Dolley

Graham Smith is an obsessive-compulsive who believes that any change to his daily routine can cause the world to slip out of kilter. He'd seen the evidence — roads change course, people disappear, office blocks migrate across town. All at night when no one’s looking.

Annalise Mercado hears voices, all from girls calling themselves Annalise. She tries to block them out but then they tell her about Graham Smith, the danger he's in, and how only she can save him.

“Resonance is a tremendously accomplished book ... and immediately raises Dolley into the ranks of writers to watch. It's a head-over-heels romp through ever-changing realities, crammed with great set-pieces, excellent hooks and some nice one-liners,” — Keith Brooke, Infinity Plus.

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Or buy the paperback at Powell’s in the US, or Amazon in the UK.

Shift

Chris Dolley

A near future SF mystery thriller with a touch of out-of-body horror.

A serial killer with multiple personalities. An astronaut who returns from higher dimensional space a changed man. And two unlikely detectives who have to get inside the mind of a killer ... literally.

“Shift is an exciting and shocking futuristic thriller. The characters are original, and the imagery pulls you in. Incorporating heart-pounding suspense and an inventive twist of science fiction, I enjoyed this story even more than Dolley’s Resonance. This is another author I’ll definitely be watching.” SciFiChick.

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