“Slim Gunter tries to help people. People like Estrella Woolf. They have too much money, too few scruples and attract trouble like a night-bus.
When Slim investigates the theft of a Tibetan artefact he doesn’t expect to get more out of it than enough money to pay the rent and settle the tab in the off licence.
What he actually gets is a case involving strong drugs, rats in hats, bad policemen, Maltese crooks, pornography, a trip to the seaside, and murder.
Big Eddie Scarborough, academic Barclay Lloyd and Slim’s sweetheart Lady join forces to find out what is really going on. But nobody’s telling the truth and everyone has something to hide, including Slim.”
Estrella Damn
Matthew Loukes has worked in theatres, removals, music venues. tattoo shops and bars. He’s also spent far too much time in offices, wearing a suit to a shine. Married for more than ten years he tries to move around. Mostly he’s in London. He’s the one wearing a hat, wishing he could still smoke and trying to attract the attention of the bar staff.
Matthew was born in Eastbourne, next to the stony beach, on the South Coast of England where he learned to swim, comb his hair into a quiff and lie still while having his ribcage tattooed. His parents were both actors.
In 1988, he moved to London and spent ten years living with a Heavy Rock band, a philosophy professor and a collection of transients moving from the seaside to city.
Matthew graduated from the inaugural London University MA creative writing programme in 2005. Before that, he was short-listed for the Sunday Times New Crime Writers award and had some sports journalism published in books, national newspapers and magazines.
He writes in an office amid the silent calm of empty desks. If you are looking for influences you could find some in Tex Avery, Raymond Chandler or better still, just by walking the streets between Kings Cross and Chancery Lane stations. There you’ll find some old bars, graveyards and the murmured memories of afternoons spent cutting the dust and hiding out. The themes are there, in the cracked flagstones, full ashtrays and broken promises.
Soul Bay Press have published Matthew’s first two novels ‘Estrella Damn’ and ‘Goose Flesh’. A hardback version of Goose Flesh was published by SBP in November 2013. Matthew also contributed a Slim Gunter short story ‘Our Lady’ to the SBP compilation ’13’.
We always aim to ship our books out within 3 working days of receiving your order.