Month: December 2018

Life in Japan can be strange at times

I’m reprinting my Tokyo thriller, At the Sharpe End (it’s available as an ebook already). Strangely, my first two books (Beneath Gray Skies is the other) are the last ones that I have republished in print, following the demise of Inknbeans Press.

The book is about technocrime, fintech, and spies and agents insinuating their way into the lives of a very ordinary British expat scratching a living in Tokyo. It’s a little far-fetched in places, but there are some rather interesting predictions and coincidences in there.

However, looking through the text to reprint it, I’m still quite pleased with the adventures of the eponymous hero, Kenneth Sharpe. Tokyo is a strange place to live, and strange things do happen to those who choose to live and work there. I’m not saying that the exact interactions and events that happened to Sharpe also happened to me, but strange and bizarre things have happened in the past.

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Posted on by Hugh Ashton

One year on

It was just over a year ago (in fact, it was about 1:30am on Christmas morning 2017) that I read an email from a friend informing me that my publisher, editor, and friend, Jo Lowe of Inknbeans Press, had died.

The news was not totally unexpected, but it hit me hard, and Christmas last year was very much a matter of smiling on the outside and grieving on the inside. Since then, I have had to pick up the pieces, not only of my emotional life (for I, like all who knew her, I think, was more than a little in love with this lady whom most of us had never met in person), but of my life as a writer.

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Posted on by Hugh Ashton

Christmas Gifts for Sherlock Holmes fans

Doctorfront.jpgMy wartime (that is, the Great War of 1914-1918) adventure of Sherlock Holmes, “The Adventure of the Deceased Doctor”, which first appeared in The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories – Part V, and was subsequently published in Notes on Some Singular Cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes (j-views) is now available as a free download from here in both Kindle (MOBI) and iBooks, Kobo, Nook, etc. (EPUB) editions.

But wait, there’s more!

If you’ve already read, or bought this story, but are missing some of my other Sherlock Holmes adventures, from now to Christmas 2018, there’s a 25% discount on all my other Sherlock Holmes titles (excluding the box sets) bought through this site. I’m using PayPal as the payment method, and a service called SendOwl to ensure secure delivery of the books.

See them at:

Simply use the code SHER-UN-LOCK-2018 when you check out.

And please let me know if you encounter any problems with the purchasing or payment process. I will never take over from Amazon, but it’s very nice to be able to offer a small-scale alternative to the big boys, and I want it to work as well as possible.

If you’re not sure how to “sideload” an ebook onto your reader, click here for instructions.

(the original of the header image from Aussie~Mobs is to be found at https://www.flickr.com/photos/hwmobs/16698026584/ and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 licence)

Posted on by Hugh Ashton

A talking ferret for Christmas!

LestradeThrowsHatIf you know children aged between 7 and 11 (or thereabouts) who would enjoy having a detective story read to them, why not give Sherlock Ferret and the Phantom Photographer a try? The world’s cutest detective takes on a case at the request of his client, Mr. Montague Mole, helped by his friend Watson Mouse M.D., and their friend Lestrade, who is a rhinoceros (though not a very big one).

Here’s a little extract:

Sherlock Ferret’s well-whiskered friend Watson Mouse M.D. tells the story of how Mr. Montague Mole shows photographs of his family, but he has no idea who has taken them! Could it be a phantom photographer?

As so often, the nefarious Moriarty Magpie appears to be involved, along with the mysterious Sir Basil Badger, who vanished several years before, after eating twenty-seven jam tarts (and lots of other delicious things!). But thanks to Sherlock Ferret’s knowledge, his Big Books, and the Bakery Irregulars, all is put right in the end, and the Mole family can sleep safely all day (for the night is their busy time).

To buy the whole book (a little over an hour long, 92MB – uses PayPal for the £8 payment):

If you want to read the book, you can buy it (and the other Sherlock Ferret titles) from Amazon, etc.

Posted on by Hugh Ashton

Avoiding the piranhas

Because piranhas live in the Amazon.

I’m looking for a way to sell more directly to you, my readers, and I think I’ve found the way to do it. If you have £1.41 to spend (this is the same price as Amazon), you may care to try my Tales of Old Japanese.

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Posted on by Hugh Ashton

Hamish Macbeth – REVIEW

Recently I was introduced to M.C.Beaton’s Agatha Raisin books. The first I tried was a disaster for me. I then borrowed another one from the library, and was more impressed. But people on Facebook, etc. said you should try Hamish Macbeth books by the same author. So I did.

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Posted on by Hugh Ashton