| History and books and dance and stuff

So today is publication day for Monsters in the Mist.

I’m excited. I hope you are too, but I can understand that you’re probably a lot less excited than me.

Why am I excited about Monsters in the Mist?

Galbraith and Pole are leaving London to solve a murder in mid-Wales. The story is set in a beautiful part of the world where, until a couple of years ago, I used to spend several weeks every year. I miss it horribly and in the story I was able to set off walking across hills I know well.

The Galbraith & Pole books are what they call Urban Fantasy, a genre I hadn’t even heard of when I started writing them. A key point about Urban Fantasy is that the fantastical elements are set in a very real world. Many of the places in Monsters in the Mist are easily identified on the map, but some details are wrong, mainly because I don’t want the places where the villains live to be identifiable locations. There aren’t a lot of people living in mid-Wales and it would be embarrassing to suggest that some of my former neighbours have been out on a killing spree on the hillsides. I hope, though, that I catch some of the things that make mid-Wales special and that you might decide to make a visit.

Not all of the story is set in Wales. Pole spends a day in Porton Down, the all-too-real secret government research establishment in Wiltshire and the story climaxes in an RAF base which is not nearly as fictional as most readers will think it is. Look out for the ‘Works Unit’ sign on the M4 and ask yourself if you think it is really a Works Unit.

If you’ve liked the previous Galbraith & Pole stories, you’ll enjoy learning more about the mysterious Section S and meeting more of the people who work in it. If you haven’t already read Something Wicked and Eat the Poor, you’re missing out, but you should still be able to enjoy this one. It’s got mad scientists and agents of the Deep State, special forces soldiers and helicopters, and, of course, tango.