Letter from Spain #1 - The Barcelona Connection

New book published, coinciding with my first post on Substack ...

‘A murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three.’

EVERY CRIME SCENE IS A WORK OF ART.

I’m delighted to be kicking off my first post on Substack by announcing the publication of my new book, ‘The Barcelona Connection’.

Planned as the first in a series of books about an art detective, the book is also in development as a TV series. As an author, journalist, occasional radio and comedy host, I am often working on several projects at the same time, but am always happy to hear from anyone who’d like to get in touch.

My weekly newsletter on Substack (every Sunday) will mix observations about the news and living in Spain, notes on ‘The Barcelona Connection’ while writing the sequel, plus a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look into developing it for the screen.

My non-fiction travel memoir, ‘A Load of Bull – An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’, tells the story of being sent to Madrid in the late eighties for six weeks to help launch Spanish Vogue, but staying for a decade and running the company. I am also planning a sequel based on my time living and working in Barcelona since 2006.

To kick things off for this first post, below are some details about the plot of ‘The Barcelona Connection’. You can click here on this Books2Read link to find the best way to purchase your copy, either in print or as an eBook. I hope you enjoy it and I look forward to sharing news and updates about my writing with you in the weekly newsletter.

The Barcelona Connection

Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective ...

Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.

Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.

Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.

From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …