Coffin Dodgers
Coffin Dodgers is my debut novel, and it’s on sale now. It’s a fast, funny and fat-free thriller that’s been compared to Christopher Brookmyre, Bateman, Tim Dorsey, Carl Hiaasen and the films Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. At the time of writing (February 2012), it’s number one in Amazon’s humour chart, number one in technothrillers, and number forty in the Kindle chart. I’m quite pleased about that.
Here’s the blurb:
Eighty is the new thirty. Nobody’s having babies, the old massively outnumber the young and the hip crowd has become the hip replacement crowd. Twentysomething barman Matt Johnson would be bored senseless if someone wasn’t trying to kill him.
When Matt isn’t playing silly pranks on his elders with his colleague Dave or laughing at Dave’s dating disasters, he’s trying to summon up the courage to ask best friend Amy out on a date. Then Matt narrowly escapes a car wreck, and he discovers that his accident was no accident. Someone’s murdering young people, and dozens are already dead. Can Matt, Amy and Dave stop the killings? The answer involves guns, gangsters, an angry bear and plenty of irate pensioners.
I’ve been lucky enough to have some people say very nice things about the book. Writing in The Big Issue Scotland, Smokeheads author Doug Johnstone said this:
“Marshall is a journalist turned novelist who has clearly been reading plenty of Chris Brookmyre and Colin Bateman, as his debut fictional outing shares with those authors a no-holds-barred thriller plot with a sense of the ridiculous, lacing nastiness with some delightfully black comedy. With society getting ever older and everyone living longer, young people are in the minority, even more so when someone starts trying to kill them off. Told with a sureness of hand, it’s not exactly high art but Marshall does still manage some astute social commentary amongst the mayhem and gags.”
The fantastic crime writer Ray Banks was nice too, saying that “you really can’t afford to miss out on this”, while Malachi at All Metaphor, TC at Booked Up, Chris at Adarna SF, Bonnie Lamer and some very kind Amazon reviewers have said good things too.
Coffin Dodgers is on sale now from Amazon UK and Amazon US. If you’d like to see my Amazon UK author page, it’s over here. I also have a Goodreads profile, which you’ll find here.
If you’ve got a Kindle e-reader or tablet then Amazon’s your best bet, but you don’t need a dedicated e-reader to get your hands on Coffin Dodgers: Kindle apps are available for PCs, Macs, tablets, iPhones and iPods. If you’re determined to get Coffin Dodgers and refuse point-blank to do anything Kindle-y, drop me an email and I’ll sort you out.
If you enjoy the book, I’d really appreciate it if you could write a wee review and/or add tags on the ebook shop of your choice. If you fancy adding some tags on Amazon or passing it on to somebody else, that would be great too. My marketing budget is effectively zero, so any help is very much appreciated.
I would, of course, be absolutely delighted to provide review copies for any book bloggers or anybody else who fancies reviewing it. Just drop me a line.
Last but not least, here’s a trailer I made in iMovie:
23 Responses to “Coffin Dodgers”
Leave a Reply
Andy on June 1st, 2011
I’ve supported you when you played in Kasino and I started reading blog years ago. I’m heading straight over to Amazon to buy a copy of the book.
gary on June 1st, 2011
Thanks :)
Stephen on June 2nd, 2011
I’m about 30% of the way through and loving it! Other half was getting annoyed last night when I couldn’t stop laughing out loud every couple of minutes. Great idea, great execution. Matt is a very sympathetic character, and first-person is hard to pull off. You’ve done a brilliant job.
Gary on June 2nd, 2011
Aw, you’re making me blush :) Thank you.
mupwangle on June 2nd, 2011
I notice that you’re in the Amazon Top 100 Fiction chart. Also that you’re 1,413 in paid Kindle books.
Gary on June 2nd, 2011
Yeah, it’s interesting. Exciting too :)
Squander Two on June 2nd, 2011
Blimey. In a word. How’d you get a following that big that quickly?
Squander Two on June 2nd, 2011
It can’t just be followers of this blog. For the most part, they wouldn’t be interested, there being no chapter about Defrost-o-Plates.
rnnbrwn on June 2nd, 2011
It’s probably the cover; I’m sure of it.
Squander Two on June 2nd, 2011
Now I think about it, I can’t believe you didn’t put a Defrost-o-Plate on the cover. What were you thinking?
Gary on June 3rd, 2011
Chart positions are less impressive than they look. I hit number 80 in the UK fiction/humour chart with 3 sales :)
rutty on June 6th, 2011
Lawks, there’s some crap in those Amazon charts ;)
Have just purchased so now I have a choice between Stick Cricket and your novel when I go for a poo. Will let you know what I think :)
(of your novel…)
Good luck with the book sales. Really hope it does well
Gary on June 6th, 2011
Thanks Rutty. I appreciate it.
Gary on June 16th, 2011
Here’s the first independent review. This is the review I will cling to when others give me a pasting.
http://allmetaphor.com/2011/06/16/eighty-is-the-new-thirty/
as on June 16th, 2011
Nice one! I told you it was good :)
Beverley on June 22nd, 2011
Gary,
You’re not supposed to give people the stats on becoming a best seller!!!! Just let them believe your an awesome writer and people are dying to read your stuff. :)
Gary on June 22nd, 2011
Heh :) Amazon’s charts are just weird. The more you sell, the lower down the charts you appear to go.
Stephen on August 12th, 2011
Hey Gary, I was interested to see that Sony think you’ve written another book:
Fate’s Cross
Hopefully it’s just their book display system, not their payment department, which has you confused with this guy.
Gary on August 15th, 2011
Well spotted, thanks – I’ll find out what’s happened.
anewnham on September 26th, 2011
It’s still not appearing in Kobo. Is there still a plan for that?
Gary on September 26th, 2011
Yes, but unfortunately the plan is “wait for Kobo to get its act together”. There’s apparently a huge backlog – I’ll email the distributor and find out if there’s anything they can do.
Bryan on February 22nd, 2012
Hi Gary, just finished reading your book and really enjoyed it. I am another one of those that remembers you from your Kasino days. My band supported you at Herriot Watt Uni once and I reviewed Kasino for BFM. Do you remember that esteemed publication?
all the best
Bryan
Gary on February 22nd, 2012
Hi Bryan, it’s nice to hear from you. I remember BFM well – looks like you’ve gone on to considerably smarter things :) Do you still play?