The Hobcast Book Show

There was a time, not so long ago, when the name Moss Side conjured up images of dystopian Manchester streets riddled with drug-related gang gun crime. The epicentre of 'Gunchester' in the 90s, the district was one of the toughest areas in the UK to police. Our guest this week, James Ellson did just that, and was responsible for serious crimes in the division, from shootings, robberies to suspicio...

When it comes down to it, The Hobcast Book Show is above all else a celebration of storytelling. Our guest this week, Tim Sullivan , has been a storyteller his whole career - beginning with theatre productions at Cambridge University, making short films, working throughout the Granada TV empire in all departments including news and drama, and becoming a director of shows such as Coronation Street...

There seems to be a theme emerging on The Hobcast Book Show . Iet's amazing how many guests begin their literary careers in comics and graphic novels. That's certainly the case for our guest this week, D.V. Bishop . David was the youngest editor ever of the celebrated 2000 AD comic. As he explains, many of the lessons he learned from that experience have given him advantages as a novelist and crea...

There can't be many authors who haven't dipped into the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook at least once in their career. First published in 1906, the 2025 edition came out last week. It's the go to reference guide for the UK publishing industry, with comprehensive listings of all the agents, publishers, periodicals, newspapers, awards and festivals that make up the British publishing scene. But as ye...

On this week's Hobcast Book Show , we talk to our latest Hobeck Books author, David Jarvis about his new thriller - The Violin and Candlestick , and about how a career as an internationally-renowned strategic planner has fueled this latest novel in the Mike Kingdom series. Michaela 'Mike' Kingdom is a former desk-bound CIA analyst who becomes a reluctant freelance field agent thanks to the machina...

Who knew that the innocent looking Foxglove at the bottom of the garden could kill you? Or could your Peace Lily be trying to poison you? Our guest this week, author Jill Johnson , has drawn on her knowledge from her degree in Ornamental Horticulture and wider passion for plants to create her Eustacia Rose mystery series. Eustacia is the putative professor of Botanical Toxicology at University Col...

Welcome to this special edition of The Hobcast Book Show , bringing you highlights from Europe's biggest independent publishing show, SPS Live! 2024 . Hundreds of authors descended on the South Bank Centre in London for this fourth edition, for two days of talks by bestselling authors and industry figures - all offering insights into the potential future for independent publishing. The two dominan...

Whatever happened to the Artful Dodger? That's a question that our guest James Benmore has explored with The Dodger Papers trilogy of novels, exploring how one of Charles Dickens' most-beloved characters might react on his return to London after five years hard labour in Australia which was his fate at the end of Oliver Twist. Some might say that it's a brave call to return to the world of a liter...

You'll forgive us for talking shop this week on The Hobcast Book Show , as we speak to fellow indie-publisher, Phil Rowlands of Diamond Book s. Set up by three friends during the Covid crisis, Diamond Books specialises in crime fiction. Phil, and his fellow founders Jeff Dowson and Steve Timmins all had experience as authors, directors and script writers in their own right. Born partly out of frus...

One of the joys of interviewing authors for The Hobcast Book Show is delving into the myriad ways they conduct research for their novels. Our guest this week, Liz Webb , is a great believer in immersing herself in a setting and finding inspiration from those experiences. So it was quite natural for Liz to take the plunge into the freezing waters on a remote 'slate' island off the west coast of Sco...

Crime fiction is the most enduring genre in UK publishing, as well as the most popular. For over two hundred years, readers have had a love affair with whodunnits and murder mysteries, police procedurals and amateur sleuths. So what lies behind crime fictions eternal appeal? Who better to ask than our guest this week, Martin Edwards , who is recognised as the foremost authority on the history of B...

"Relax. The inspiration will come." That's the message for writers from our guest this week, novelist Orla Owen . The author of the critically acclaimed Christ on a Bike , Orla has learnt to trust in the writing process to solve problems she faces, whether it be a plot point or character development, or any other of the myriad puzzles that need solving during the creation of a novel. Orla is also...

So much of publishing of the publishing process has been sped up by waves of digital technology over the past three or four decades, so it's rare to meet an author who believes in the creative power of putting pen to paper rather than slaving in front of the computer screen. For our guest, Jennifer Lee Thomson , the magic of writing longhand unlocks her creativity in a way that a word processor or...

It's only in the past few years that neurodiversity has entered the wider consciousness. For instance here at The Hobcast Book Show , we are both touched by Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but we've only become aware of it recently. It helps explain our lifelong experience of feeling on the outside of society - never quite fitting in or being comfortable behaving as others would e...

We're always keen to explore where an author's inspiration comes from. What inspires that kernel of an idea that leads to a novel? In this week's episode we speak to Alison Stockham , who explains how the seeds for her recently published third novel, The New Girl , were sown some years ago after a conversation with a friend. As Alison explains, she's always had a gift for taking inspiration from o...

We're delighted to be joined again by our guest, Julie Anderson this week, as we celebrate the launch of her new novel for Hobeck Books, The Midnight Man . Set in post-war Clapham, the book introduces us to two very different women, Elly and Fay, who become an unlikely sleuthing duo following a chance meeting in the cafeteria of the South London Hospital for Women and Children. It was a remarkable...

We had the pleasure back in February 2024 to appear on The Secret Circle podcast discussing the challenges of running a small publishing house in the current marketplace. This week, we have the pleasure of returning the invitation to the show's host, Dr Luke Deckard . Luke is an author with a deep passion for noir, both written and film, and is a creative writing mentor at the University of Westmi...

There are so many challenges that publishers face as it is, so is it possible to also tackle the environmental impact of creating books too? Our guest this week, Stuart Debar of UK independent press, SRL Publishing , believes it is. In fact, he argues that publishers have a duty to publish in as sustainably as they can, from choice of paper stock for their print copies, planting trees to offset th...

Why become an independent publisher? It can't be the hours? Or the pay. So what motivates people to enter the industry? That's a question we put to our guest this week, Joe Chadwick , author and creator of Essex-based micro-publisher Crescent Swan Publishing . Joe set up the company in order to publish his first novel, The Briarmen in 2021, and with that experience behind him, he signed his first...

We're heading Stateside again this week on The Hobcast Book Show to meet our guest, C McGee . By day, he's Professor Caleb Husmann, teaching political science at William Peace University in North Carolina, and by night he's C McGee, author of satirical mystery, Owen O'Shea - Stay-At-Home Dad, Wannabe Detective . As Caleb explains to us, once his dreams of becoming a professional soccer player ende...

Would you ever consider writing a chapter from the perspective of an octopus? Our guest this week, New York-based author Tim Maleeny certainly has, but as he explains in this episode of The Hobcast Book Show, he'll consider anything if it entertains his readers. Tim is the author of the Cape Weathers Mysteries series; the latest novel Hanging the Devil was published in 2023, and deals with the mur...

It's been something of a mad week for us at The Hobcast Book Show . We've been on the road with our annual visit to the London Book Fair at Olympia , and spent two days in Dorset discussing books with bestselling author Rachel Maclean. Somehow we've also found time to speak to Hobeck Books author Stacey Murray ahead of the release of her first novel for us, the brilliant psychological thriller The...

We're thrilled to be joined again by one of the true stars of the UK independent crime fiction scene - JD Kirk . In the past few years he's developed a huge following for his work, especially the best-selling DCI Logan crime thriller series - with 19 books to date. His year to come looks busy, to say the least, with 5 novels scheduled and three screenplay adaptations of his romance series for a le...

It's perhaps not a thought widely shared, but we think that William Shakespeare is one of the English language's original crime authors. You don't have to look far into his canon for murder mysteries, whodunnits, revenge thrillers or even the odd domestic noir. The Bard has certainly proved an inspiration for our guest this week, author Guy Hale who releases the first novel in his latest series, t...

Our guest this week on The Hobcast Book Show rarely takes no for an answer. Author, journalist and podcaster Paul Waters sees a 'no entry' sign as a challenge to be overcome rather than a deterrent. Take, for instance, how he produced the first live foreign radio show in communist Cuba by somehow smuggling in a satellite dish through the airport. And how many Hobcast guests can claim to have cooke...