Murder at the Grindhouse - my new novel...

Murder at the Grindhouse - my new novel - is releasing on August 7th 2026 worldwide via Amazon.

The eBook is already up for pre-order worldwide (e.g. UK, USA) and the physical print edition of the book will go live for purchase on August 7th.

Set during the dying years of the most notorious street in America: New York's 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, Murder at the Grindhouse is a coming-of-age murder mystery thriller set against a backdrop of social upheaval, the encroachment of corporate America, and a sensational killing streak. The propulsive story is told primarily through Calvin, a scorned small town zero forever chasing to catch up only to arrive too late, who is drawn to the city by a stunning, morbid mystery: who was the second body hidden inside his Aunt's coffin?

Calvin enters this extraordinary land of outlaw film culture and illicit freedoms as a wide-eyed innocent seeking answers and personal redemption, drawing him into a world of copycat murders, temptation, and mob intrigue. Besieged by alluring distractions, he is guided by Angela, a hard-nosed punk rocker; Carol-Ann, a jocular dancer with Broadway dreams; and their coterie of misfit friends. However, when Calvin's amateur sleuthing puts him in the middle of one too many crime scenes, Detective Armstrong begins to like him as a prime suspect for 'The Devil of The Deuce' serial killer. Will Calvin be able to peel back the layers of secrets, lies, and sordid actions to unveil horrifying truths – and at what cost to his soul?

A vivid and gleefully lurid journey through society's edge during a bygone era, Murder at the Grindhouse consumes the reader in a world populated with humorous, vibrant, and emotionally flawed personalities cast against a varied mix of absurd fringe fantasia and sudden danger.

We Should Eat Ice Cream Too (Short Story)

As mentioned in my previous post, "We Should Eat Ice Cream Too" is now available to read HERE. I hope you enjoy it.

The Nice Guys - mini review...

What's it about?
Los Angeles, 1977. A goon for hire and a bumbling Private Investigator, both with questionable morals and a streak of bad luck trailing in their wake, find themselves thrown together as they investigate a case of corporate conspiracy that spirals outwards from the death of porno star 'Misty Mountains'.
Who would I recognise in it?
Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe, Matt Bomer, Kim Basinger, Keith David.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Shane Black brings his love of L.A. and crime fiction back to the silver screen with a hefty dose of humour ladled on top. If you dug the vibe of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang then you'll know what to expect here, but with an added 1970s groove and a rowing back from the sheer self-awareness that stood so proudly at the heart of Black's last foray into noir-tinged sleuthing in the City of Angels...

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Sabotage: Mini Review...

What's it about?
A team of hard-as-nails DEA agents pinch a cool $10 million during a raid on a cartel stronghold and stash it for later - but when they return for it, they find it missing. Then, soon afterwards, the team starts getting picked off one-by-one.
Who would I recognise in it?
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Worthington, Olivia Williams, Terrence Howard, Joe Manganiello, Josh Holloway, Mireille Enos, and more.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Testosterone overload ahoy in David Ayer's tough-as-old-boots thriller which plays out more as a murder mystery than a straight-faced action fest. That's not to say it's light on adrenaline - it's not, because there's eruptions of blood-splattering violence throughout (eviscerated and nailed to a ceiling, anyone?) - but the hard-hitting, teeth-gritting gruffness of it all is mixed with a complex who-dunnit plot...

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Seven Deaths In The Cat's Eye (Antonio Margheriti, 1973) DVD Review

Find more giallo reviews here.

With gialli, you'd usually find a straight-razor-wielding maniac running amok in and around the beautiful architecture of an Italian city (often-times Rome), but Antonio (Cannibal Apocalypse) Margheriti's Seven Deaths In The Cat's Eye (aka Cat's Murdering Eye) stands out from the crowd with a Scottish setting in a coldly gothic castle. It's as if the frenzied slew of 1970s giallo crashed head-first with a mist-wreathed Hammer Horror Film.

Click “READ MORE” below for the full review and many more screenshots...

Watch Me When I Kill (Antonio Bido, 1977) DVD Review

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Otherwise known as “The Cat's Victims” or “The Cat With The Jade Eyes”, Watch Me When I Kill was Antonio Bido's first foray into the world of giallo filmmaking. Coming from a background in art house film, Bido wanted a commercial hit that would appeal in equal measure to film buffs and general audiences. Taking inspiration from the likes of Hitchcock and Argento, and combining the original, artier script with more mainstream adaptations, Watch Me When I Kill came into being.

Click “READ MORE” below for the full review and many more screenshots...

Autopsy (Armando Crispino, 1975) Review

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Otherwise known as “The Magician” or “Macchie Solari” (“Sunspots”), this is a review of the uncut version of the film which clocks in at 100 minutes, as opposed to the 85 minute cut.

“People have been knocking themselves off like flies.” Thrust into the boiling hot, blinding white light of the sun – as solar flares erupt and moans of sexual ecstasy call out – Armando Crispino's giallo gets off to a fast-paced and violent start. A rash of suicides plague the beautiful city of Rome as it bakes in the August sun – a woman slits her wrists, a man wraps a bag over his head before diving into a river, another blows himself up in his petrol-drenched car, and a father shoots himself to death after slaughtering his own children.

“It seems sweet to die in August.” There is a blood-soaked madness spreading through the populace, and the morgue is jam-packed with mutilated cadavers – but is every single one of these apparent suicides what they appear to be? Might this be the ideal time for a killer to strike and hide their devious deeds under the guise of suicide?

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots...

Eyeball (Umberto Lenzi, 1975) Review

Find more giallo reviews here.

Umberto Lenzi is best known for such violence-spewing film fare as Nightmare City and Cannibal Ferox, but as a director who dipped his toe into numerous pools, some of his other work has faded into the background. Lenzi's optic-bothering giallo Eyeball is one such obscure effort.

“The flowers of death? I'm far from ready.” A bus-load of American tourists are in Barcelona to see the sights but, for some, the glint of a raised dagger will be the last image to flash across their moist little peepers. The holidaying ensemble are a motley bunch – the unhappily married Alvarados, a grandfather with his bored granddaughter Jenny, shifty-looking Reverend Bronson (George Rigaud, The Case of the Bloody Iris), letchy photographer Lisa and her lesbian muse Naiba, all leaving secretary Paulette (Martine Brochard) looking positively dull by comparison.

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

My Dear Killer (Tonino Valerii, 1972) DVD Review...

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Tonino Valerii's only venture into the world of the gialli flick is as much a poliziotteschi crime thriller as it is a bloody murder mystery. George (All The Colours of the Dark, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh) Hilton plays Inspector Luca Peretti, the cop who is (typically enough) obsessed with his latest case, which kicks off with a novel use for a dredger – decapitation – one of the films stand-out set-pieces.

As Peretti's case gets ever-more-twisted, he finds himself trapped within a complex web of deceit and a hidden truth that someone is going to murderous lengths to keep a secret. Eventually it becomes clear that at the heart of this growing pile of bodies is the missing child of a rich family, that is populated by an untrustworthy group of liars and cheats – but who is to blame and why are they resorting to cold-blooded executions?

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The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (Sergio Martino, 1971) DVD Review

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One of Sergio (The Mountain of the Cannibal God, Torso) Martino's earliest films, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh exhibits a confident grasp of tension-building and exploitable elements, which would be seen just as strongly in his later work (such as the equally superb Torso aka Carnal Violence). This prime example of the greatest the giallo genre has to offer, partly inspired by Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955), follows Julie Wardh (screen siren Edwige Fenech, Strip Nude For Your Killer), the wife of an American diplomat who has been left stifled and unfulfilled by her marriage, and resorts to fantasising about her fiery relationship with the sexually aggressive Jean (Ivan Rassimov, Eaten Alive), who she once again comes face-to-face with when she arrives in beautiful Vienna.

Similar to Torso, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh kicks off with a first half that is fuelled by frequent sex and violence, with a second half that focuses on the psychological torture of the female protagonist. Ninety seconds into the film and you've already been confronted by bare flesh and a slashing straight razor – the tool of choice for the so-called 'Sex Fiend' killer who is on the loose. During this first half, there's more bared arses and breasts than you can shake a stick at (Martino deliberately shot much of this content so the conservative Italian film censors would have something to edit out – content which has returned for this DVD release, the first-ever in the UK) – and then by ten minutes in we've had four nude scenes.

 

Click "READ MORE" below for the rest of the review, as well as more screenshots.

"Summer Road" getting re-drafted...

In 2010 I wrote a screenplay called "Summer Road", which was submitted to the BBC Writersroom and got a full read-through. It's important to note that getting a full read-through at the Writersroom is a tough ask in itself. They get 10,000 scripts a year and kick back the vast majority after a mere 10 pages - regardless of whether you agree with their system and approach to vetting unsolicited screenplays or not, those are the breaks when it comes to the Writersroom - so, point being, getting a full read-through is not exactly a common occurrence there.

Anyway - I've returned to this comedy drama to give it a bit of a bashing around to bring it up to my current screenwriting standard - and then put it out to a couple more places and bank it before advancing onto the next screenplay project I have in mind (which won't be feature length, by the by) ... after which I'm planning on seeking out an agent.

So that's future plans, but right now I've just started the re-writing process on Summer Road (Draft 4.1) - I'm at page 20 (of 107, currently) and so far the biggest changes have come to a handful of flashback sequences. In the previous incarnation of the script I was telling more than I was showing, so I'm reversing that situation and re-writing it according to my current standard.

It has been a good 18 months since I touched this screenplay and I'm able to weed out bits that no longer work, or which feel too 'on-the-nose', while adding a few more flourishes here and there. A key aim will be to re-work the entire second act - re-aiming the focus of the plot - and hopefully bring the page count down. 90 pages would be lovely, but I don't think I can tell this story quite that tightly (you don't want to hack and slash at the expense of your script after all) - but I'll be looking to try and get closer to that figure, even if the page count has - for the moment - packed on a couple of pages up front.

I think it will take a good couple of deep passes to do everything to it that I want to do, but it's kind of nice to head back to this script after spending so long on Allen Bridge, which I'm immensely proud of, but it's a good change of pace. That said, I'm also really looking forward to what I have planned for my next new screenplay and what will come after that - as I've aluded to above.

Strip Nude For Your Killer (Andrea Bianchi, 1975) DVD Review...

Find more Shameless Screen Entertainment DVD reviews here.

It's a very real possibility that you've never heard of this mid-70s giallo flick, let alone seen it (especially if you're British), but - thanks to Shameless Screen Entertainment (in their gleefully gaudy yellow DVD cases) - you can.


The film kicks right off at the business end of an abortion that goes tragically wrong for the fashion model on the receiving end of the procedure, thus setting into motion a series of killings perpetrated by a vengeful and lithe figure adorned in black leather motorcycle gear. Everyone at the dead girl's modeling agency could be a suspect or the next victim, and with the police struggling to crack the case, it's up to a photographer and his beautiful assistant to solve the case - when they're not busy stripping off and getting steamy with each other, that is.


Packed to the rafters with bare flesh, the sexual politics are obviously well dated, but fans of beautifully photographed and skilfully directed giallo with a touch of sleaze will be in for a treat. Franco Delli Colli's photography (polished up by Shameless and presented in its original aspect ratio) mixes perfectly with Francesco Bertuccioli's scene-blendingly crisp editing, and Andrea "The Zombie Dead" Bianchi's smoothly crafted, tension-inducing direction.

Like many giallo flicks, the focus is more on beautiful images and gorgeous girls, than telling a tightly scripted narrative, but if you enjoyed the giallo movies of Dario Argento's early career (such as The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, and Deep Red) and you're wanting to branch out a bit further into the scene, then Strip Nude For Your Killer is an ideal next step for cinematic connoisseurs.


Shameless Screen Entertainment's Region Free DVD comes with a series of trailers for this and other titles in their catalogue, as well as a reversible sleeve so you can choose which lurid cover is more to your liking (both feature the same back cover, replete with 13 screenshots ... all of which have boobs in them ... for your information).

Bianchi's film is garish, gorgeous, brutal and beautiful all at the same time.

"Allen Bridge" script planning a-go-go...

It's been an absolute hive of activity when it comes to my next script "Allen Bridge" - a drama/mystery - as I spent all afternoon yesterday furiously scribbling down ideas for entire scenes and a whole backstory to the titular town.

It really is a case of the muse working her magic - the inspiration is coming thick and fast - so much so that when I thought I'd finished I returned to my notebook not once, but twice, to scribble in yet more ideas that suddenly sprung to mind. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle is forming of its own accord inside my head and I'm just trying to keep up with the thought process that seems to be beyond traditional thought ... that sounds kind of weird, I'm sure, but that's how inspiration works I guess.

As for "Summer Road", I'm currently working on the covering letter to go along with the script to the BBC Writersroom. It's amazing how tricky it can be to really get everything you want to say into one sheet of A4, and without talking about the specific plot or characters directly (so sayeth the Writersroom website).