Welcome to Mirebury

Letterbox is a short novel, but a long story. It began about fifteen years ago with an idea for a truly original suspense novel, and I'm confident that it is indeed original. Take a quiet country town, little more than a village really, preferably in an isolated location, and toss a maniac hellbent on tearing the community apart in there. Now, to make it original, the antagonist mustn't hurt anyone with his own hands, but rather use the locals' underlying tensions and fears to provoke them to violence. How? By making nocturnal deliveries to their letterboxes. 

The result was a rollicking suspense novel full of dark humour and quirky small-town characters. Letterbox was picked up by a small publisher called Naked Snake Press, and (there's no other way to say it) barely made a splash in a bathtub. The publisher later folded (I'd like to assume not as a direct result of publishing my novel) and Letterbox was back in my hands. Armed with experience and invaluable reader feedback (hats off to fellow Australian writer, Anthony Ferguson, in particular), I decided to rework it, and that's just what I did, but I got on with other writing at the same time, including my urban adventure novel, The Tunnel Runner.

Fast forward to 2021, and Letterbox is finally ready to be unleashed once again after major rewrites. The bad news is that I can't really explain the changes to you without spoiling the ending. Suffice to say that Letterbox is now as much a mystery novel as it is a thriller. Think Midsomer Murders with a teacher as the unlikely hero and the craziness turned up a notch or two! 

Welcome to Mirebury. Are you ready to check your letterbox? I dare you!

Ian Carew is a mild-mannered teacher at the primary school in Mirebury, a quiet town lost in the moors. Six years after leaving London, he's still considered a newcomer, but his elderly neighbour, Mary Hopkins, treats him like a son, and the local butcher, Jack Fuller, is his best friend. All that's missing from Ian’s life is a touch of romance and a dash of adventure. Little does he know, he's about to get a taste of both. When Mary Hopkins opens her letterbox and makes a gruesome discovery, Mirebury is thrown into a state of shock and outrage. At first, the townsfolk assume it was a random act, but the horrible deliveries continue and they're forced to acknowledge they have become the target of a campaign of terror - and nobody’s letterbox is safe.

Letterbox is available through all good retailers, including Amazon and Bookshop, or you can order a copy directly from Black Beacon Books.