If there is one line that had me spilling my whisky it was the description of the skinny jeans, possibly my biggest (of many) chuckles. From the opening paragraph to the closing line this is a roller-coaster of tension, humour, gore, pathos. Luckily we were in a position where it wasn’t just me doing everything, we had cover designers, editors, working with us freelance.

Hoon is once more going to have to take on the bad guys alone, armed only with his wits, his fists, and his unique line in insults. If you haven't read this or the previous three, please give them a go, you really are in for a treat. While the outcome is no great surprise, there’s no guarantee that all of Hoon’s unlikely friends will survive so it was still quite a tense listen. Once again, Angus King’s narration was superb so I thoroughly recommend the audiobook if you don’t mind all the swearing. The first book, The Killing Season, was published by Orion in 2014, followed by The Samaritan, The Time to Kill (titled Winterlong in the USA), and Don’t Look For Me.Certainly during lockdown, people would feel like they were able to travel to the Highlands, so internationally that’s a big pull of the books, the romance of it all. Barrington Stoke is an award-winning, independent ​publisher, and the market leader for struggling, reluctant and dyslexic readers. They are a wonderful mixture of action and comedy (with a lot of swearing and gore, but so worth it) and they just get better as the series progresses. This book has an almost cinematic feel (the inspiration is very obviously Die Hard), mixing as it does action (there are some great one on one fights), humour, bad language, exploding bodies and entrails, a showdown with the main bad guy, and a huge amount of blood. Conversely, I haven’t read the Jack Logan books (that these are a spin-off from) and don’t think that mattered - although of course now I fully intend to, as Kirk’s humour is right up my street.

Well I worked with publishers for about ten years writing kids’ books, but ultimately it was by accident that I got into self-publishing. This book was a lot of fun, we got a bit more of Bob’s sister Berta who is rude and aggressive but great with kids (weirdly enough) and of course we got all the Die Hard action of Hoon swinging around killing people and cursing and generally making a mess! So in summary there is a hostage situation that takes Hoon by surprise while he’s off in the toilet, there is action, there are Christmas carols and explosive Santa’s….

I am looking forward to reading more of the Logan and hopefully Hoon novels and books from Kirk’s other pen names. And having ripped through both of their series and slowing working through all of Mayhew’s others works I decided to give this one a try.

I put on some quizzes, I’d recorded videos with a wee Santa hat, and loads of them got together on the Facebook group to chat and spend Christmas together. Then when people were asking about merchandise, I had all the rights, so I did T-shirts, mugs, and we were able to exploit audio fully, because a lot of my books the audio rights were with the publishers but they never did anything with them. I have said before; Hoon is over the top, foul mothed, and eager to use violence as a blunt instrument to find out what he needs to know. For example, with the JD Kirk group, a lot of the readers are older and are on Facebook and some were alone at Christmas, so we did a kind of Christmas get-together.So for those who may not know, you self-publish your crime fiction through Zertex Media, and to massive success. I had picked that one, Bones, for a few reasons, but mainly because authors Alex Smith and JE Mayhew have both recommended the author and series. Do not read this book and drink a beverage as it will squarely land on whatever is in front of you when you roar with laughter time and again. After being repeatedly beaten, shot at, blown-up, and tortured, Hoon is looking forward to spending a quiet Christmas drinking heavily in front of the TV, while pointedly ignoring the older sister who has invaded his home.