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[shewhomust]

My friend John Brooker has put together a book of stories and other pieces written by his late father. His father (A. J. Brooker) wrote bits and pieces all his life and occasionally had something published - in Punch, for example. John inherited a big box of his writing and eventually, after (as he says in a final 'editor's note') reading the stories for 50 years, on and off, he thought it only fair to let other people have a look at them.

With the result that they are now available on Amazon, as a Kindle ebook and now also in paperback. Here's the Amazon solicitation:

"You're cheating", observed Savage Roche, pinning dealer's hand to the table with a fork. "If he's got less than five aces I'll apologise", he added.

Will Fred Montague default on his bets and face social ruin, or will Savage Roche break his neck?

As the editor explains in his Foreword, the title is no more than the truth: these stories are period pieces. A small number were set in the present day, though even the present day of writing has slipped into the past. "The present day narration may be in the 1950s or 1970s, but the author is always happiest in the mid-eighteenth century."

I'm not an expert on the eighteenth century, and I'm not going to comment on the authenticity of these tales. But I found them witty, cynical, at times macabre, and very more-ish. If that's the kind of thing you like, then you might like them too.

ETA: There's a 'read a sample' button on the Amazon page, which offers several complete stories ...