Books

Nirvana Bites | Trading Tatiana | De Nada Nirvana | Me, John and a Bomb

Nirvana Bites

Synopsis

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This is how Nirvana Bites was summed up in the official Orion press release for the trade paperback version published in June 2003.

Jen is trying to get a job at the BBC but her chances are thwarted by her prospective employer, Stanley Highshore. In a delicate emotional state after being blackmailed, he’s up a ladder in his BBC office clad in very little and with his numerous piercings on show. Jen recognises him as Stapled Stan – a regular on the south London S&M scene. Terrified that his seedy secrets will be disclosed, and his life as the respectable husband of a Conservative MP is in jeopardy Jen is enlisted to find and confront his blackmailers.

After an encounter with two armed men (who she fights off with the judicious use of a couple of fire extinguishers and an axe!) Jen seeks the help of her Nirvana Housing Co-op neighbours. It soon becomes clear that an inconspicuous aquatic shop, Koi Korner, is hiding some dark secrets.

Fast-paced and witty, NIRVANA BITES features numerous sub-cultures – from New Agers to new technology buffs, from anarchists to fascists, from animal rights activists to abattoir workers, from media executives to transsexual fetishists. Bursting with energy, it’s a brilliantly observed comic triumph and heralds the arrival of a highly individual and hilarious new voice.

And this is how it was summed up on the cover of the mass marketing paperback version.

Imagine you have a job interview. And the last time you saw the interviewer, they were clad in full black leather, pierced, studded and masked. This is what happens to Jen when she applies to become a BBC Researcher and comes face to face with Stanley Highshore, top-ranking BBC executive and spouse of a Tory MP - but better know to some as 'Stapled Stan'. Stan is beset by problems. His production suite has fallen foul of a bunch of eco-warriors and his secret sex life might not be secret for much longer. Stan enlists Jen as his private investigator. It soon becomes clear that the local aquatic shop, Koi Korner, is trading in much more than exotic fish. Comic and fast-paced, with a memorable cast of weirdos and misfits, Nirvana Bites is a brilliant debut from a daring new talent.

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Trading Tatiana

Synopsis

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This is how Trading Tatiana was summed up in the official Orion press release for the trade paperback version published in January 2005.

From the author of NIRVANA BITES comes a sparkling, fast-paced and blackly comic second novel, TRADING TATIANA. It tells the story of an unlikely good Samaritan, and a runaway teenage prostitute and the events that unfold when their lives collide.

Jo Cooper leads an uneventful life, selling jewellery on a Greenwich market stall, babysitting her neighbours' kids, and trying not to pay too much attention to the noises made by the S&M devotees who live next door. Home for Jo is a top floor flat in the Old Kent Road council block, Boddington Heights. An ex-drug-addict herself, she has a penchant for rescuing people: waifs and strays, a Ukrainian refugee whose cause she champions and the man in buttock-less leather trousers she finds chained to the roof of her building.

But Jo's inability to walk away from a crisis lands her in trouble when a day-trip to Brighton ends with her helping a frightened girl to escape from some Russian thugs. The mysterious woman overturns Jo's life, plunging her into the world of illegal immigration and prostitution rackets where human lives are ruthlessly traded and violence and distrust are rife.

Sparkling, fast-paced and blackly comic, Trading Tatiana is the story of an unlikely Good Samaritan and a runaway teenage prostitute determined to hold on to her secrets – and of the events that unfold when their lives collide.

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De Nada Nirvana

Synopsis

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Most people would be overjoyed at the offer of an all-expenses-paid trip to the Costa del Sol. But Jo isn’t so sure. All she has to do is find Matt - the teenage nephew of her mate’s bloke. It all sounds so easy … So why does she feel so uneasy?

Arriving in Benalmadena, Jo’s investigations soon result in an introduction to the side of the region the authorities don’t want the tourists to see; the reason the area is known as the Costa del Crime. Hopelessly out of her depth, Jo is floundering until she meets Tina, the Top Totty from Totnes. Tina is an ex-beauty queen who is desperate to contact her son, who is in Morocco having been snatched by her husband. Together, Jo and Tina get onto Matt’s trail. But it soon becomes clear the teenager had been following a sinister agenda all his own.

Meanwhile, back in south London, Jen is struggling with the confirmation that she’s pregnant. With twins! She and Ali need to radically review their relationship before they can make any decisions about the future.

As Jo and Tina are drawn further into dangerous territory, the violence spills across the continent and Jen and Ali find themselves the unexpected targets of some very ruthless villains.

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Me, John and a Bomb

Synopsis

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What makes someone want to build, set and detonate a bomb?
In the case of anarcha-punk, Suky Higham, aka Sky High, it’s a combination of rage, frustration and confused politics.

As far as she’s concerned, the only way to right the inequalities and injustices she has experienced in her own life is to blow the lot up and start again.

It’s hard to do on your own though. So when Sky saves a suicidal teenager, John Griffiths, she sets about inducting him into her lifestyle of petty crime and sabotage.

On a mission to tear down a mobile phone mast on the roof of Boddington Heights, Sky and John meet Jen and Ali from the Nirvana Housing Co-op, who are engaged on the same task. The difference is that Jen and Ali are accompanied by their baby twins.

Jen is struggling to come to terms with turning thirty and parenting two babies, a task that comes more naturally to Ali. Sky and John are introduced to the co-op but sparks fly between the two women.

On Hallowe’en, Sky packs explosives into a pumpkin and she and John leave the device outside McDonalds. When a drunk is in danger of being blown up along with the burgers, John races forwards to save him and is injured.

When the pair realise the cops are onto them, they make their way to Devon, where they stay in an old boat shack. Sky feels certain they have been betrayed and her suspicions fall on Jen and the Nirvanans. Jen, meanwhile, is convinced Sky is an agent provocateur. One way or another, it does seem as though the south London network has been infiltrated.

In Devon, John hopes that he may be able to curb Sky’s more destructive tendencies. But then she hears about the G8 summit and is determined to take part in the action.

They arrive at Paddington at 9.30am on Thursday 7th July 2005. The day everything changed.

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Nirvana Bites | Trading Tatiana | De Nada Nirvana | Me, John and a Bomb