Amazon are doing some crime writing promotion, and both the brand new THE DEAD BEAT and HIT & RUN are currently only 99p on kindle.
Likewise, GONE AGAIN is still in some other promotion and is only 59p.
So that’s my latest three books for less than the price of a coffee and a bacon roll. Enjoy!
Here’s the third instalment of lovely press coverage for The Dead Beat:
There’s a terrific review of the book over at Scots Whay Hae courtesy of Ali Braidwood. ‘If there is a more exciting writer around today, they’ve passed me by,’ he says at the end. Oof!
The Lancashire Evening Post get in on the act, Pam Norfolk raving about the novel. ‘There is an almost tangible sense of expectation and excitement to this rollercoaster tale.’
Harriet Devine gives it the once over at Shiny New Books, and declares herself ‘tremendously impressed’. Cheers!
I had a good blether with Yasmin Sulaiman at The List magazine, about death and all that funny stuff.
Mr Hyde, ‘the in-the-know email for the cultured man’ no less, gave the book a wee write-up and advised ‘the cultured man’ to fill his kindle with it. Good advice!
I reviewed this in the Independent on Sunday. It is a terrific book. It’s a slightly misleading title, however. Read my review here.
illustration by Mitch Blunt
Here is my latest column in The Big Issue, with reviews of books by Luke Brown and Mark Z Danielewski, and an all-too-short mention of Peter Ross’s wonderful Daunderlust. All three books are excellent.
Can I also just say, once more, that I LOVE Mitch Blunt’s illustrations for these columns, just so good.
OK, so there’s been a heap of great coverage for The Dead Beat since it came out last week, and here it all is:
Here’s a total rave review by Nigel Bird over at Sea Minor: ‘This is intelligent, gripping, thoughtful fiction that demonstrates how a thriller can be so much more than a clinical dot-to-dot.’
Over at Eurocrime Amanda Gillies goes totally bananas about the book. Any review that begins ‘Just when you think an author can’t possibly get any better – he does. I love this book!’ and ends ‘Extremely Highly Recommended’ is fine by me, oh yes.
I wrote a piece over at Shots Mag about how the ghosts of slackerdom and grunge haunt the novel.
Five star review, you say? Thank you Lynsey Adams at There’s Been a Murder!
Another five star job over at Crime Squad courtesy of M.M., who ends by saying ‘this is quite possibly Johnstone’s best book yet’. Isn’t that something.
Here’s a feature I wrote for Upcoming4.me about the obsessions behind the book.
Over at Endless Falls Up, Ray Garraty gives the book a considered once over, claiming that I grow with each book as a writer. Very kind, sir!
Over at Crime Fiction Lover Andre prefers the characterisation to the plot – can’t win ’em all, eh?
And last but by no means least, Andy Watson posted a terrific write-up of the launch party event last week on his blog. Many thanks, Andy!
Folks, I’m appearing at an event tonight at Waterstones in Livingston, 6.30pm, alongside Louise Welsh, Russel McLean and Lin Anderson. Looking forward to it! I heard it’s either tag-team wrestling or an old skool hip-hop dance-off. Come and find out which.
illustration by Mitch Blunt
I reviewed a couple of non-fiction books for Big Issue this time, The Secret Life Of Sleep by Kat Duff and No Mercy by Eleanor Learmonth & Jenny Tabakoff. Very different, but both very good.
There’s been a wee rash of press coverage for The Dead Beat prior to publication. Here it all is in one handy place:
Here’s a thing I wrote for Crime Time all about death, BIG BLACK DEATH STALKING ME.
I answered some very astute questions over at Female First, all about my feisty female protagonist and all that guff. Enjoy!
I wrote a big old feature for The Herald about writing The Dead Beat. Turned out it was a double-paged spread and the front cover of the Arts supplement. Nice. Anyway, here it is. I mention AL Kennedy and a whole bunch of other shit.
As a sidebar for that Herald thing, I WROTE MY OWN OBITUARY. Here it is. It was both funny and weird to write.
Upcoming4.me reviewed The Dead Beat and loved it, winding up the review by saying: ‘It is an excellent Edinburgh novel and is, just like grunge, fast and dirty.’
An awesome review by Shari Low in The Daily Record which ends: “Riveting. Fearless. Twisted. If Tartan Noir was a family with an irreverent rebel child, his name would be Doug Johnstone.”
A lovely four-star review over at Library Thing by ‘Atticus Finch’, who loved all the music stuff and thought the mental health issues were handled well. Ta!
I was interviewed by the Edinburgh Evening News, where I talked about Kurt Cobain, feeling old and my obsession with obituaries. Read all about it here.
Three weeks before publication we had the first review of The Dead Beat, by Bethany Anderson over at Subtle Melodrama. And it’s a cracker, Ms Anderson describing it as ‘funny, moving, exciting and, as always, Johnstone really brings the city of Edinburgh alive’. Cheers, Bethany!
I made a mixtape for THE DEAD BEAT. A REAL MIXTAPE. Don’t ask my why.
Another cracker from Laura Lippman. Here’s my review of After I’m Gone (Faber) in the Independent on Sunday. A gently subversive and astutely observed novel.
Doug Johnstone 
