LONDON, 1944. ENGLAND’S FINEST CRIMINAL MINDS ARE ABOUT TO GO TO WAR ...

The Art of Misdirection tells the true story of how the nation’s art treasures were hidden in tube stations, country homes and caves during the Blitz, along with the fictional story of an apprentice art thief who is betrayed by his mentor and sets out across war-torn London determined to get his revenge.

Mixing fact and fiction, it’s a page-turner packed with historical detail.

My previous work includes a contribution to the short story collection, Talking to Strangers, (Intellect Books, 2007) and a story in the forthcoming Achtung! Cthulhu: Dark Tales from the Secret War (Modiphius, 2015).

The Art of Misdirection is my first novel, and is intended to be the first in a series.

I can trace the beginnings of The Art of Misdirection back eight years, to the moment I found out that the Elgin Marbles found a home on the disused second platform of Aldwych tube station during World War II. During the war most of the museums in London stood empty, their exhibits sent away for safe keeping to salt mines in Wales, country homes north of London, and a purpose built underground facility in the West Country, following Churchill’s decree that, ’not one picture shall leave this island’.

After that it was simply a matter of piling one ’what if’ on top of the other. What if these secret stores weren’t so secret after all? What if a pair of talented thieves found out all about them and decided to use that knowledge for nefarious means? And what if the thieves were a rather unique and special pairing—a sort of anti-Holmes and Watson, intent not on solving crimes, but on committing them?

To tell the story I had in mind required a lot of research. Thankfully, some questions were easier to solve than others, like how quickly you could run the length of the tunnel between Aldwych and Holborn tube stations, or what it was like in the last slums of London before they were torn down.

Other matters were more complex, such as how cold it felt down in the depths of Chislehurst Caves, the ‘underground city’ south of London where up to 15000 people sheltered during the Blitz, and that had its own chapel, hospital and two theatres. And what it feels like to feed a pick and wrench into a lock, to lift the pins one by one, until you have it open.

The Art of Misdirection is currently at the final edit stage and I’m delighted to make it available for preorder.