Devil's Coast promo

Release date: Devil’s Coast

Level Best Books will publish, DEVIL'S COAST in hardcover on February 23rd 2025. Pre-order and review copy details will be updated soon.

YOU CAN MAKE BAD CHOICES FOR GOOD REASONS…
SOMETIMES THOSE BAD CHOICES LET YOU LIVE
“How does this work?” Michelle looking at Ben on the doorstep.
“I was hoping you’d tell me.” Ben hoping the girl knew about hiring a gigolo.
“You don’t know?”
Ben shrugged. “I feel like that kid in Die Hard, asking how the limo service worked.”
“You like Die Hard?”
“Everybody likes Die Hard.”
Michelle didn’t. “I prefer When Harry Met Sally.”

Benjamin J. Green is the tennis pro at a holiday resort in Spain. Michelle Cordero Belen is the bride-to-be at a hen party staying at Laguna Park. Ben is hired as a gigolo for one night but neither of them wants to go through with it. Despite their better judgement, they fall in love and run off together. But Ben is a UK thief hiding out on the Costa del Sol, and Michelle is the daughter of a Mexican drug cartel boss. The marriage is intended to cement a merger with a Spanish cartel. Add to that, Ben steals money from the resort safe only to find there is far too much. Laguna Park is a money laundering operation. So now they have the money launderers and two drug cartels chasing them through Spain, France and Italy. Not exactly When Harry Met Sally.

Covers Poster 2023

OPERATION SNOW QUEEN – ITW Q&A

When Down & Out Books published Operation Snow Queen in February, we completed a questionnaire for International Thriller Writers. Unfortunately it slipped through the net, and the Q&A session missed the cut. You can read the unused interview below. Happy reading.

OPERATION SNOW QUEEN: ITW Q&A

• ITW: Which took shape first: plot, character, or setting?
“This is a kind of chicken and egg situation. Since this is a Jim Grant book, the character obviously came first. But since it’s about Grant’s formative years in the British Army, and I am drawing from real places and situations that I lived through during my army career, you could say portions of the plot were lived before they were written.
For example, I was stationed at Blackdown Barracks when a runaway suitcase broke a passenger’s leg at Waterloo Station. I was posted to Germany and promoted to Lance Corporal, serving as Company Clerk at 3BAPD. And I was assigned to a skiing exercise in Bavaria called Exercise Snow Queen. Operation sounds better, as does most of the other stuff that happens to Jim Grant in Germany. The knotted rope and the fire escape reads better than it lived.”

• ITW: What do you hope readers will take away from this book?
“I am never so pretentious to assume readers take anything away from my books apart from passing a few enjoyable hours with characters they care about. If there’s anything else, remember that soldiers put their lives on the line to protect your freedom. And cops arrest bad guys for the same reason. Cut them some slack if they occasionally make a mistake. We all do.”

• ITW: What attracts you to this book’s genre?
“As always, I like a story that moves and characters that get in too deep then dig themselves out. Those characters can either be innocent bystanders that get caught up in a crime or the professionals whose job it is to protect and serve. Either way, crime fiction lets your hero step up to the plate. Being ex-army and retired police, I do tend to gravitate toward the professionals. And they’re all better than I used to be.”

• ITW: What was the biggest challenge this book presented? What about the biggest opportunity?
“This book came together relatively easily. It didn’t present any challenges at all. Opportunity? It was a chance to drive down memory lane and relive some of my travels. With the added bonus that I could make all the right choices this time around. Funny thing about writing; since it all starts in the mind, and the mind is a very powerful tool, the stuff that pours out of my head feels like reality not fiction. As such, it feels like I’m writing a diary of events not making things up.
Oh hang on, I’ve found a challenge. The challenge is to get the reader to see, as close as possible, what I am seeing. I know that’s impossible because everyone will interpret the words differently. So that’s quite a challenge.”

• ITW: How does this book make a contribution to the genre?
“I have never felt that I belong among the great authors who define this genre. If I contribute anything, I would say that it’s the continuation of what others have done before me. Tell a good tale. Leave the reader feeling satisfied. And hopefully wanting more.”

• ITW: Without spoilers, are there any genre conventions you wanted to upend or challenge with this book?
“My main problem is, I don’t know what the genre conventions are. I know what I like when I read books of this kind but I don’t know the rules so I don’t know how to upend them. Maybe I throw in a little more dry humour, but Raymond Chandler already did that. A bit of tough as nails action? Lee Child already did that. A pair of Yorkshiremen riffing off each other? That’s my upending.”

• ITW: No spoilers, but what can you tell us about your book that we won’t find in the jacket copy or the PR material?
“When I was stationed at 3BAPD, my position as Company Clerk granted me certain privileges. Being a Lance Corporal did too. One of them was sharing a room with a fellow Corporal instead of living in a barrack room. We were allowed to rearrange the room so our wardrobes became a dividing wall, essentially giving us a single room each. It was very cosy. Until a new Sergeant Major took over and ordered us to turn the room into a barracks again. Including confiscating my writing bureau. As happened in the book.”

• ITW: Was there anything new you discovered, or surprised you, as you wrote this book?
“It continues to surprise me how everything that has gone before informs what lies ahead. Everything we have done makes us who we are today. Who we are today allows us to choose what to do tomorrow. If that sounds a bit pretentious for a Yorkshireman, try this. It’s not the shit that happens it’s how you deal with it. Jim Grant keeps finding fresh ways to deal with it.”

• ITW: What authors or books have influenced your career as a writer, and why?
“This answer will never change because my past is set in stone. As a reader I was influenced by C S Forester, Stephen King and Ian Fleming. Then I found Joseph Wambaugh and my direction was set. As a retired police office how could I not write crime fiction? My first crime books were in support of The Boys In Blue but then I slipped into thriller territory and my inspirations changed. Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Reed Farrel Coleman, Nick Petrie and Ace Atkins. Everything you read and watch influences your choices. Everywhere you go filters into your choice of location. I suppose the simple answer is, I’m influenced by everything.”

• ITW: What’s the one question you wish someone would ask you about this book, or your work in general? And please provide an answer.
“Same question I always want to be asked. When is the next one coming out? Answer? Soon.”

Op Snow Promo

Pre-order: Operation Snow Queen

OPERATION SNOW QUEEN - A Jim Grant Thriller is available to pre-order now. Coming from Down & Out Books on February 5th 2024.

“You could well be the worst typist in the Corps. Which is a shame because you could have been one of the best soldiers I ever trained.”
Sgt Hopkins looked at Pte Grant. “Being good at weapons drills and unarmed combat isn’t everything. But what you’ve done today. That’s a different matter.”
“What have I done today?”
“The number one rule of any soldier, combat, clerk or engineer. What every soldier learns. Is that you don’t fight for your government, your queen or your country. You fight for the man beside you. You help dig his trench. You watch his back. And you throw yourself on the grenade to save him.”
“I didn’t throw myself on a grenade.”
“You ruined your career and your future for the man beside you at Waterloo Station. I hope he appreciates what you’ve done.”

3BAPD, Bracht, Germany
Before Snake Pass saw Jim Grant sent to America, and before Jamaica Plain saw Grant recruited by Boston PD, and even before the Black Hawk Down incident when he was in the British Army. Before all of that there was Operation Snow Queen. With only two years’ service, Grant is posted to Germany after a runaway suitcase at Waterloo Station breaks a civilian passenger’s leg. He replaces a Company Clerk who lost his head in an accident, and a smuggling ring that doesn’t want him. Following an explosion at the Ammunition Depot, and a court martial in Dusseldorf, Grant is assigned to a training exercise in Bavaria. A place where landslides and falling off a mountain are the least of his worries.

Buy it from Amazon.co.uk here
Buy it from Amazon.com here
Buy it from Barnes & Noble here

police car at night

RUINS OF MIDNIGHT: ITW Q&A

The following Question and Answer session was generated by International Thriller Writers (ITW) and was featured on Down & Out Books website.

• ITW: Which took shape first: plot, character, or setting?
“I am going to go completely off piste here, since this is a reissue of a previously published book. I wrote, Through the Ruins of Midnight over 20 years ago, back when I had a fondness for elaborate titles. I have reduced it because even I used to stumble over it when discussing the book. So, plot, character or setting? They all came fully formed. The plot is real life squeezed into a single night shift. The characters are real, with a few minor tweaks and a change of name. And the setting is the police division where I worked, with a bit of creative licence.”

• ITW: What do you hope readers will take away from this book?
“A feeling of what being a police officer does to your life. I think it was Joseph Wambaugh (a great inspiration to me) who said his books aren’t about the police working the case, but how working the case affects the police. This book does both.”

• ITW: What attracts you to this book’s genre?
“Write what you know. I know this.”

• ITW: How does this book make a contribution to the genre?
“Not so much a contribution to the genre as a tribute to the boys in blue. Uniform police who are the front line of defence against chaos. This is for them.”

• ITW: No spoilers, but what can you tell us about your book that we won’t find in the jacket copy or the PR material?
“Nothing. It’s all on the page.”

• ITW: What authors or books have influenced your career as a writer, and why?
“This answer will never change because my past is set in stone. As a reader I was influenced by C S Forester, Stephen King and Ian Fleming. Then I found Joseph Wambaugh and my direction was set. As a retired police office how could I not write crime fiction? My first crime books were in support of The Boys In Blue but then I slipped into thriller territory and my inspirations changed. Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Reed Farrel Coleman, Nick Petrie and Ace Atkins. Everything you read and watch influences your choices. Everywhere you go filters into your choice of location. I suppose the simple answer is, I’m influenced by everything.”

ruins-midnight-campbell-print-copy-1

It’s Back: Reissue of Ruins Of Midnight

Reissue of RUINS OF MIDNIGHT is available to pre-order now. Coming from Down & Out Books on November 6th 2023.

Mick Habergham enjoys working the nightshift; patrolling the midnight hours when the world is asleep and police work is simple. Sunday night should be quiet but, as his mind wrestles with divorcing Angela, it will prove to be anything but. From the mad knifeman of Hill Top Hostel to the most inept suicide attempt at the House of Pain, Mick will face all manner of obstacles to a peaceful night. If it isn’t Marak Vargo or Booger Smith, it will be the tragic pensioners of Maple Court or the battle of The Alex Public House. Midnight ruins so many lives. Tonight, one will threaten Mick’s own. If he wants a happy retirement he will first have to walk through fields of heartache and survive the ruins of midnight.

Buy it from Amazon.co.uk here:

Buy it from Amazon.com here:

Buy if from Barnes & Noble here:

Fourteen Books

Fourteen Book Deal – Level Best Books

Level Best Books, near Washington DC, have signed a fourteen book contract with Colin Campbell. The deal includes eight YA novels and six standalone crime thrillers. Titles, in no particular order, are;

YA:
Silent Flight Holy Night, The Early Grave of Sophie Laville, The Boy Who Burgled Hartley's, Occluded Front, Three Into Two Will Go, and the Gargoyles trilogy; Skylights and Roofscapes, Stoneheart and Bloodline, and Return of the Krol.

STANDALONE CRIME:
Devil's Coast, Night Delivery, Burgos, Silent Coast, Return To Silent Coast, and Darkest Blue.

Silent Flight Holy Night will be released March 24th 2024. Devil's Coast is due, October 24th 2024.

Level Best Books
mystery-writers-logo-new
itw-logo-new
cwa-logo-new

© 2025 Campbell Fiction.  All rights reserved.