NS Cooke / News / Thu 07 Mar 2013
Novel Launch: 'BANDWIDTH - The Ghost of Devlin Mallard'
In the 21st Century, West Country spirits have moved on from Ouija boards and séances, the dead now travel by broadband, hidden in the Bandwidth. They inhabit the chat rooms, plying their trade online, ever hungry for contact with the living.
Inspired to rediscover his roots and family history, computer programmer, Michael, soon learns that the past is sometimes best left undisturbed: for lurking in the history of his bloodline, is a twisted killer, Devlin Mallard. A man dispatched from this Earth in 1929 at the end of a hangman's noose.
Now fighting for his life, and that of his family, Michael joins forces with murder investigator, Detective Sergeant Woods, and rides a roller-coaster of global killings to the final confrontation. He must face his demon and return Devlin Mallard to the darkness.
Local writer and full-time Torquay ‘bobby’, N. S. Cooke, is pleased to release his debut novel with international publisher, Accent Press. Former student of Torquay Boys’ Grammar, he is inspired to write gritty and authentic pieces, with larger than life characters, to both entertain and inform.
The spark that ignited ‘Bandwidth – The Ghost of Devlin Mallard’ was a chance attendance, by the author, at a local séance. It created the notion of ghosts that roam the internet. That first encounter brought him into contact with inspirational characters that would develop into medium, Dedra, and Percy, two elderly heroes from the novel.
The book flirts with many of our area’s ongoing issues: drugs and alcohol abuse, homelessness; change; and popular culture – good and bad. It makes for a modern Dickensian, West Country mix of drama and high adventure.
And the ghost that is Devlin Mallard? His dark character was born of old Cockington: a man of pure insidious nastiness, who runs riot in our beloved Torbay, spreading disaster and mayhem.
‘BANDWIDTH’ is available in paperback and ebook format from Publisher Accent Press (www.accentpress.co.uk), and from Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk). It’s also available for the personal touch via Torbay Bookshop, Paignton, supporters of local writers.
For more information visit http://www.accentpress.co.uk/Book/8823/Bandwidth.html