Big Jessie

Intelligent, pacy, darkly funny and highly entertaining follow up to LONDON IRISH.

Zane Radcliffe was born in Bangor, Northern Ireland in 1969. After graduating from Queen's University Belfast he moved to London in 1994 to become an advertising copywriter. He is now a Creative Director at Newhaven, a really good advertising agency in Edinburgh. His first novel, London Irish (2002), earned him the WHSmith 'People's Choice' New Talent Award. This follows the success of his first short story, My Dog (1974), which was awarded a B+ and a Big Red Tick by Miss Hasard at Ballyholme Primary School. His second novel, Big Jessie, is also published in Black Swan.

'She emerged from a flurry of windblown rose petals, her pale skin interrupted at regular intervals by bands of red - scarlet bob, scarlet lips, cropped scarlet top, scarlet mini, scarlet knee socks, scarlet boots. She looked like a barber's pole, or a lolly that had to be licked.' 
 
Scarlet plucks her twelve-string guitar with nails the colour of glazed cherries and Belfast music hack Jessie (Jay to his friends) Black is smitten. He charms his way on to her tour bus as her band head for Dublin, but the second they cross the border he feels the heat of a sniper's bullet... 
 
Who wants Jay dead? Or rather, who doesn't want him dead? Any number of people might, with some justification, have pulled the trigger. There's Scarlet's stalker, the gun-toting shoe fetishist. And the still-grieving widow of Northern Ireland's international goalkeeper, Miles Huggins, who Jay inadvertently killed. Not to mention the property magnate who was blackmailed into handing Jay the key's to Belfast's first-ever million-pound flat. Or the RUC Chief Constable who has given Jay an ultimatum. Or, now you come to mention it, how about Sinn Fein numero uno Martin O'Hanlon, whose cover Jay's been strong-armed into exposing? However it's when Scarlet goes missing that things start getting serious and Jay has to go it alone. 
 
A story of blackmail, corruption and exploding peacocks, 'Big Jessie' is the new firecracker thriller from the author of the WHSmith Award-winning 'London Irish'.

London Irish

A well-intentioned ex-pat Irish loafer finds both love and his life threatened in a deftly-told and deliciously dark comic thriller with a heart

'Very fresh, very funny. I laughed until I stopped'

WINNER OF THE WH SMITH'S PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD [New Talent] 
 
There are 750,000 Irish living in London. One of them has to get out. For good... 
 
It is the summer of 1999. Bic (half-Irish, half-Scots) is eking out a living selling crêpes to the hordes descending on Greenwich market. With one severed ear, two bizarre deaths and the arrest of his dog for civil disobedience, Bic's year hasn't exactly been going to plan. 
 
But when raven-haired Roisin takes the stall opposite his, things seem to be looking up - if Bic can just get past her over-protective brothers. That is, until Bic wakes up the-morning-after-the-night-before, in his clothes, in Edinburgh, to find he's the UK's Most Wanted Man - on the run and with fourteen murders to his name... 
 
'Very fresh, very funny' COLIN BATEMAN 
 
'A huge and exciting plot...I loved the twist at the end' Goodreads 
 
'Great story and full of humour' Goodreads

Zane Radcliffe

'There have been some outstanding debuts this summer, but in the comic thriller genre London Irish is definitely the best new title of the year. It rocks!'

'Christopher Brookmyre meets Nick Hornby in MacCarthy's Bar'

'Verdict: Funny, absurd and memorable. Recommended'

'A very funny, intelligent and distinctly Irish thriller'

'Callum looked out over Reykjavík, its colourful dolls' houses snuggled together, their rooftops so sharp and precise against a blue-screen sky. He loved this daft capital, this gale blown toy town with whalebones under its flagstones...' 
 
But Callum Pope cannot escape the horrors of his past. 
 
He has fled his native Glasgow to make a fresh start in Iceland with Bírna Sveinsdóttir, the pretty glaciologist who is slowly thawing his heart. 
 
He has moved in with Bírna, her indomitable mother (who happens to believe in fairies) and her eleven-year-old daughter - who refuses to believe in Callum. He tries hard to adjust to this new life among three generations of singular females, however, the dark secret Callum is hiding is about to raise its malign head, threatening not only to destroy his relationship but also the life of a young girl... 
 
&nbsp;Perceptive, expansive and chilling, The Killer's Guide to Iceland is a novel about love, loss and persistent light, from the award-winning author of London Irish.

Zane Radcliffe

Praise for The Killer's Guide To Iceland

'Very fresh, very funny'

'There have been some outstanding debuts this summer, but in the comic thriller genre London Irish is definitely the best new title of the year. It rocks!'

'Christopher Brookmyre meets Nick Hornby in MacCarthy's Bar'

'Very fresh, very funny'

'There have been some outstanding debuts this summer, but in the comic thriller genre London Irish is definitely the best new title of the year. It rocks!'

'Christopher Brookmyre meets Nick Hornby in MacCarthy's Bar'

'Very fresh, very funny'

'There have been some outstanding debuts this summer, but in the comic thriller genre London Irish is definitely the best new title of the year. It rocks!'

'Christopher Brookmyre meets Nick Hornby in MacCarthy's Bar'

Books by Zane Radcliffe

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