I am presently editing DARK CLOUDS and WEIMAR VIBES, but the opening chapters of these Islamic nuclear terrorist and Euro-Nazi thrillers are available free on http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/8118591-phil-rowan

I was also recently interviewed by Canadian writer Jill Edmondson http://tinyurl.com/7j7s9m8 on my dark humour thriller WEIMAR VIBES + my disgraceful spell as a tabloid journalist! (scroll down to blog posts 29 - 21)

DARK CLOUDS has an al-Qaeda cell who want to nuke London. It’s a dark humour but scary thriller and is available on Amazon with 5* reviews (links above). It centres on Swiss-led Muslim terrorists who are intent on nuclear mayhem in the UK. They are up against Flynn, who enjoys a drink and is empathetic with friendly females … but is he really the one to deal with dangerous Islamic jihadists – people that see Westerners as misguided infidels who need to experience the purifying wrath of Allah?

Briefly …

The bad guys want to irradiate ‘decadent’ Brits, who are perceived as enemies of Allah. It is scary, but a US/UK Security Service team believe that Rudi Flynn can help them avert disaster. His Muslim American girlfriend, Faria, fell with the North Tower in New York on 9/11 and he is now working as a journalist in London.

He is trying to forget what happened in Manhattan on that fateful Tuesday, but he still has some Islamic contacts. One of whom, Rashid, is in the loop with jihadists and wants to cross over. Flynn is wary about going undercover, but an oil rich Syrian he knows is suspected of funding the bad guys. On the up side, he has just met Ingrid – an artist who invites him to join her on a Greek island where he can write about a fiery Fenian ancestor. This won’t happen, however, unless he delivers for Carla Hirsch: his ice cold and very focused US Homeland Security controller.

WEIMAR VIBES is a dark humour/satirical story in a thriller framework. Set a few years hence, it mirrors elements of 1930s German chaos in the UK tomorrow. It won a gold star and was rated as the most popular novel on HarperCollins Authonomy  http://www.authonomy.com in October ‘09. Available on Amazon with 5* reviews (links above)

Briefly …

There is chaos on the streets. Oscar ‘Führer’ Kerner is whipping up an anti-immigrant frenzy in Europe. Whitehall spooks recruit Rudi Flynn, an alcoholic US tabloid hack. They want him to win Kerner over and compromise him. He can then attract escalating right-wing support in the UK, while working undercover for Her Majesty. Flynn is reluctant. He yearns for lib/left Guardian reader Julia Stein and doesn’t want her thinking that he’s a loony neo-Nazi apologist. But the situation is serious. Flynn’s mentally unstable wife is in the care of nuns in Alabama. He’s broke and can’t pay his mortgage; so he either signs up for Her Majesty’s Government as a strident Nationalist or he gets repossessed. We start with explosions in Morocco and the main character, Flynn, being hit with a brick during riots in a Paris Muslim banlieue. We finish with troops on the streets in London and the British Prime Minister announcing that elections must be postponed.

e-mail:  phil@writerrowan.com
website: www.writerrowan.com

Post 31           ’We need more leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt … and now Please!’

Post 30          Weimar Vibes – a synopsis of my novel

Post 29           ’Journalists … don’t you just love them!’                          Erotic Review

Post 28           ’Give us the money, Mr Obama, sir … ‘                             Erotic Review

Post 27          ’I don’t like the Guardian, Phil’                                              Erotic Review

Post 26          ’Sex with politicians in the UK tabloids’                              Erotic Review

Post 25          Herr Doktor Oscar ‘Führer’ Kerner is a problem              Erotic Review

Post 24          Predilections of an Honourable Member                           Erotic Review

Post 23         ’OH MY GOD … so now it’s nuclear, guys!’                        Erotic Review

Post 22          Ministerial Diversions                                                             Erotic Review

Post 21          My Brief from Magdalena                                                       Erotic Review

Post 20          An Auschwitz Link   -    extract from my novel ‘Harps and Tears’

Post 19          A Very Franchisable Fiction Character – my main man: Rudi Flynn

Post 18          Bombs and Burqas    -    feature article

Post 17          A Death in Dubai      -    feature article

Post 16          My Weimar Vibes pitch

Post 15          al-Qaeda and the Taliban target London … again!    -    feature article

Post 14          On Duty for Her Majesty   -   extract from my novel ‘Weimar Vibes’

Post 13          Claire was a Working Girl  -  extract from my novel ‘Harps and Tears’

Post 12         ’You Men are all the F**king Same!’ - extract from ‘Harps and Tears’

Post 11          ’Journalists … don’t you just love them!’  -  see posts 29 or 4

Post 10          An Interlude with Julia   -  extract from my novel ‘Weimar Vibes’

Post 9            ‘Could you help Saulie to lighten up, Rudi’  -  ‘Weimar Vibes’  Ch 5

Post 8            ’Weimar Vibes … are we going there again?’    -    feature article

Post 7            ’Sorry, Harry … we can’t do Islamic baddies’      -    feature article

Post 6            Responses on blog posts

Post 5            ’You’ve got to be more creative, Gordon’            -    feature article

Post 4            ’Journalists … don’t you just love them!’            -    Erotic Review

Post 3            Leila and Samir                                                       -    feature article

Post 2            Abdul and the Jihadists                                         -    feature article

Post 1            Spinning Blogs                                                       -     feature article

We are going rapidly down the tubes economically … and it’s not much better politically. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi struggles to protect his business interests, along with a faltering Italian economy, while off stage a whole bordello full of girls scream for his attention!

It’s not much better in France, where Nicolas Sarkozy hopes to beat the upcoming far right presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, by flaunting his shapely Carla and a lovely new baby. While in Germany Angela Merkel clings perilously to power as she tries to convince her opponents that she is not really in the Greek Papandrou’s or anyone else’s pocket economically.

In England, David Cameron tells his disconcerted MPs – with special reference to the females – to ‘calm down, dears!’ He’s a decent enough fellow, albeit with a weak chin, but is he really up to coping with a now largely illiterate and not very keen indigenous workforce? And what’s to happen as more and more people in the UK say they want to get out of Europe?

In the States, Obama’s treading weakly with the realities of unemployment and poor growth. It’s unlikely that he’ll win a second term in the White House … but what are the alternatives? Sarah Palin and the Tea Party have, thankfully, faded into the background … in Sarah’s case to spend more time with her family! So what’s the alternative? Looks like it could be Mitt Romney … a solid businessman, by his own account, and a former Mormon bishop! He is reputed to have once taken a dog for a 1000 mile trip on the roof of his car … incredible!

It’s Weimar Vibes time again with crazy (and quite nasty) right-wing extremists lurking and waiting for all sorts of opportunities, which economically and socially are now appearing. Back in 1940 and 41, Britain faced a fierce onslaught from Hitler’s Germany. The French and the Italians had already capitulated … Petain and Mussolini had joined up with the Nazis, and England was Adolf’s next target. German bombers flattened English cities while brave pilots did their best to offer resistance over the Channel as one man with a cigar offered hope!

Winston Churchill was initially an outsider politically, but he had a strong and decisive sense of purpose. He came in because the only alternative was Chamberlain’s appeasement, which no one wanted. He forbade defeatist talk and refused to be put on the defensive. He engaged instant sympathy and support throughout a beleaguered United Kingdom; and it wasn’t long before the US President Roosevelt and Russia’s Stalin joined the British alliance, which slowly but surely engaged a ruthless Führer and eventually hit the French beaches on D-Day.

We desperately need some of Churchill and Roosevelt’s spirit and steadfast determination today in the West. Otherwise, we shall flounder and sink – economically and politically. Weimar Germany was a catastrophe that opened political doors for Austrian Adolf. Could it happen again? Yes … it’s possible. For if we descend much further economically and our political systems continue to crumble, then ruthless and doubtless murderous brigands will be on hand in the alleyways, and when they emerge almost everything that we value and have taken for granted in the United States and Britain - and in most of Europe - could disappear!

‘Weimar Vibes’ is a dark humour thriller. Set a few years hence, it mirrors elements of pre-Third Reich German chaos in Europe and the UK tomorrow. The story won a gold star on the HarperCollins Authonomy site #mce_temp_url# and was rated as one of their most popular thrillers.

We start with explosions in Morocco, riots in Paris and chaos in London. European economies are plummeting; unemployment is soaring and dangerous right-wing Nationalists are set to take control of Parliament in the upcoming UK elections.

Rudi Flynn – an alcoholic US tabloid journalist is recruited by Levinia Howarth of UK Defence Intelligence to cosy up to, undermine and eventually take over from Oscar Führer Kerner: a ruthless Euro Nationalist who is intent on initiating right-wing chaos in Europe and is rapidly gaining support amongst previously solid white workers and middle-Englanders.

Flynn is feckless and flawed … but in an increasingly crazy world he is also empathetic and engaging. Readers like him and he is particularly popular with women who want to know more about how he copes emotionally. As we open, he is jobless and short of funds. He doesn’t want to work for the UK or US Security Services, but his wife is having a nervous breakdown with nuns in Alabama and he has fallen for the adorable Julia Stein – a Guardian (left/liberal newspaper) reader who is concerned for her troubled husband, Saulie. She is appalled when her admirer’s unashamedly right-wing ‘It’s Time For A Change’ piece appears in a UK tabloid. But Flynn tells her it’s all a deliberate ruse and that he is secretly on duty for Her Majesty.

It’s not looking good, however. Kerner’s ruthless Euro Nationalist Alliance is surging ahead. There has been a bomb in the Crypt at the House of Commons and increasing mayhem on the streets. Flynn is thinking of helping his therapist Ray McVeigh with tabloid type projections on the rich and famous when, suddenly, there are British Army troops taking up positions in central London. The Prime Minister is grave, almost Churchillian, when he announces on television that UK elections, due in the following week, must now be postponed.

If you could take a look at ‘Weimar Vibes’, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed, and I would love to hear from you on phil@writerrowan.com

This first appeared in the UK Erotic Review in July 2010

‘We don’t want you in Pakistan or Afghanistan,’ Ahmed tells me.

We’re in an Arabic cafe on the Edgware Road surrounded by sheikhs and other well-to-do Muslims. It’s an agreeable location, but I’m concerned about what Ahmed’s saying.

‘I mean – we give you billions in aid. Then your Army Intelligence people in Islamabad pass on a big chunk of this money to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, who straight away murder as many of our soldiers as they can.’

Ahmed’s grinning lasciviously as I speak. ‘We’re on opposite sides of the fence, Phil … Islamists are the good guys and you’re the baddies.’

‘So why do we give you all of this money?’

‘To stop us firing nuclear missiles into India … you see, Pakistan is a failing state and we have nothing to lose, but your money helps us get what we need to make a decent stockpile of nuclear weapons.’

Holy Lord! Do our Special Branch or M15 know about Ahmed and his friends … and might our lovely London or my favourite New York be next in line for a nuclear assault?

‘Hey Phil … you like saucy sex?’

Well … occasionally … perhaps.

‘OK … so upstairs here we have very fancy ladies … and fit boys.’

Right – a sort of up-market AC/DC bordello with an exotic Arabian flavour.

‘Absolutely … and we cater for everyone. Mainly Arabs of course jus now … but you like burqas?’

They’ve certainly been in the news recently, what with Sarkozy and Carla and the Dutch, or is it the Danes, issuing banning orders against exotic female face coverings.

‘We have had someone from the Guardian here you know,’ Ahmed confides.

‘Really.’

‘Yes … and a gay politician from the Government at Westminster.’

Is my Pakistani contact having me on? I’m beginning to think so when a cab stops outside our pricy venue. The passenger is looking around furtively as he pays the driver. He’s quite familiar. Then he turns and I’ve got him. He has spoken in Parliament about legislation to prohibit gays from sharing rooms in rural hotels and guesthouses.

‘You know this person?’ Ahmed asks and when I hesitate he grins. ‘He like boys, Phil … but big … how you say … ah yes … in the pants.’

This appeared in the UK Erotic Review during July 2010.

We’re sitting outside a delightful little teashop on the Stoke Newington Church Street. It’s definitely the centre of London’s yummy mummy land and the Fresh & Wild organic food store is just a minute’s walk away. But Arabella’s between jobs on newspapers and she’s getting agitated.

‘I mean, the Guardian men are awful … limp in every sense’, she tells me. ‘And the women are so priggishly righteous. There’s no excitement because you’ve got to stay within the most grindingly boring PC guidelines with whatever it is you write.’

I’m wondering if the Daily Mail might not be a better bet for her stridently up front and in your face opinions.

‘No Phil – I don’t think so,’ she says. ‘I ended up in bed with one of their people the other evening. He thought it might have been better if the Germans had crossed the Channel in 1940 … and as he came his right hand shot out in a Hitler salute!’

I’m thinking of fiction for Arabella – caustic Louise Bagshawe type chic lit perhaps, or maybe even a features slot on the Times or the Telegraph.

‘Have you read either of these papers?’ she asks aghast.

Not recently – but I know that the new Times-on-line is hard going with page after page of the most factually overloaded and boring pieces. The Telegraph however does have good horoscopes at the weekend – surely?

‘They’re both a bit like my grandmother trying to dress up in my younger sister’s clothes’, Arabella says dismissively. ‘And I’m surprised that anyone reads them.’

Her mobile’s ringing now and suddenly she’s smiling as she listens. There’s Uber charm and generous accommodation in her expression plus a hint of carnal affection in the offing for whoever’s calling her.

‘That was the Guardian,’ she tells me when she’s finished. ‘They’re keen to have me on board, so we’re having dinner this evening … an intimate affair by the river, I think … and the remuneration they’re offering is above average …’

This appeared in the UK Erotic Review during July 2010.

I’m in Canary Wharf with an unscrupulous editor.

‘What we want, Phil,’ he tells me ‘are lesbianish liaisons with one of these sexy new female MPs.’

Right – anyone in particular?

He’s got a short list of possibilities and I’m gulping because these nubile and generally attractive parliamentary women cover the whole Lib Dem, Tory and Labour spectrum at Westminster

‘When you say lesbianish,’ I ask disingenuously, ‘what exactly do you have in mind?’

‘Sexy black underwear, Phil … at least on whoever it is you’re working with to lure in your deviant MP, as it were.’

OK – so would a bedroom scene be required … and what about dildos, or up to speed vibrators?

My commissioning editor is ordering Mohitos while I admire the view of our slightly greenish River Thames.

‘We’re not too concerned with the details,’ he tells me as our waiter disappears. ‘Of course we assume that you’ll use a decoy who knows what she’s on about, and that you’ll get whatever pictures are required.’

‘Which you’ll print?’

‘Oh yes … following on from the parliamentary expenses business we feel that our readers now want to know exactly what else it is that their MPs may be getting up to.’

I’m looking at the list + snaps of the elected representatives that my editor has prepared and they’re all pretty hot, at least to look at.

‘But what if any of your female targets decline to be seduced by another woman?’ I ask. ‘I mean, they may all be absolutely straight and not at all interested in any girl-on-girl hanky panky.’

My editor is grinning now like I’m some sort of naive newcomer to the whole business of tabloid exposés.

‘Are you a Twitter fan?’ he asks, and I have to say I’m not. Although I have heard recently that some MPs have been using the site to offer rumored anecdotes about each other – and in particular about who fancies who in the House of Commons.

‘We’ve picked up a lot from the body language of our subjects,’ my editor says. ‘OK – we might be wrong in one or two instances, but not on all of them.’

Right – but what if I’m caught. I might trip over a pair of high heels or one of the physically fitter female MPs might accost me and then subdue me on the floor while she calls the police.

‘Don’t worry, Phil … we’ll still pay you … and your being assaulted or arrested would of course be a story in itself – especially if your attacker is a female Member of Parliament. We’ll see you right even if you don’t manage to get any compromising pictures … but if there’s a fuss, we would of course want to interview you, so don’t worry, you’ll be taken care of whatever happens.’

This appeared in the UK Erotic Review during July 2010.

‘He’s bringing together a lot of undesirable elements,’ Levinia tells me. ‘People who might support that deranged killer Moat and other low-life elements. We are looking at dysfunctional white working class people here – particularly in the North of England – and amongst Nationalist supporters elsewhere.’

We’re on the top floor of an MoD building in Whitehall, where Levinia is a Defence Intelligence Controller.

‘And what exactly do you want me to do? I ask cautiously.

‘There’s a European Nationalist meeting in Athens on Friday,’ she tells me. ‘Kerner will be there and the Greek military have offered to assist us.’

Oh lord … do they want to assassinate the rightist Bavarian Hitler manque?

‘No – we just want to compromise him,’ Levinia assures me. She’s got up from behind her desk and I’m suddenly very aware of the fact that she has a striking figure. She’s also eyeing me a little provocatively as she walks to her office window from where one can just see the Cenotaph. OK – so are we thinking of sex here, or could it be something more spectacular?

‘Homosexual activity, Phil. The military will recruit the protagonists. Whatever happens will probably take place in a penthouse suite at the Grande Bretagne Hotel in Syntagma Square.’

I know it well, and it’s a delightful place – but deviant sex in the upper reaches?

‘All you have to do, Phil, is just take some pictures. The military will probably seclude you in the suite before Kerner and the other people arrive … and the RAF will fly you back to Northolt.’

But why me? Couldn’t they get a Greek Army guy to take the compromising photographs?

‘No … because we want you to also write the story, Phil. We’ve already sold the idea to a tabloid… and of course it would all have a very positive impact on your career.’

I’m not convinced. Some of these Nationalist people can be most unpleasant, and if they think I’ve smeared their leader … well … I might have to emigrate to a distant place. But Levinia’s picking up on my uncertainties. She’s already given me half a tumbler of decent malt whisky, and now she’s coming towards me. Her breasts and hips are amazing, but she’s got her hands on my shoulders.

Some gentle massage, perhaps. Then she’s bending down to whisper in my ear. ‘I’ve locked the door, Phil … so why don’t we have a little time together?’ Oh my god … but she’s already got one hand inside my shirt while the other slips between my legs.

I’m thinking of Her Majesty laying wreaths on the Cenotaph, and I know it’s a long shot, but I’m wondering if perhaps I might be serving my country if I progress with what Levinia has in mind … both here in London and in Athens.

This appeared in the UK Erotic Review during July 2010.

I am in the Mother of Parliaments and trying not to think too much about dubious double entendres associated with the place: well hung in the chamber; black rods with pristine codpieces; privy (primitive peek-a-boo loo) counsellors; passing motions (with constipated interludes) and members’ bills and dongles (to be proud of surely!).

I am also seriously aware of my girl friend, Jasmine, who works for the Guardian and is of course a solid Labour supporter.

“Phil?” she asks when I answer my mobile.

“Eh – yes … ”

“Where are you?”

“Just about to see a client, honey … and I can’t really hear you … but I’ll call back later – OK?”

I switch off my phone as she asks again where I am. There’s a leery voice calling from somewhere behind me, and I’m thinking Oh shit … my god … what am I doing … fuck … this is it.

Hogarth is wearing a smartly laundered shirt with a minor public school tie. His natural blond hair is impressive and when his hand grips my elbow I’m steered along corridors and up several flights of stairs until we eventually reach a suite of rooms from where dubious Government initiatives frequently emanate.

“I think it’s essential that we nail this fellow,” Hogarth tells me as he displays a poster with the uncertain features of a Labour MP for a marginal constituency that may soon pass to a Nationalist contender. I had agonising recriminations recently about what I was getting into when Jasmine and one of her Guardian colleagues briefed me over a pint on their paper’s stance vis-a-vis sexual deviance amongst politicians and others.

“You want him naked, I assume?”

“Absolutely,” Hogarth answers, “and properly compromised.”

“But none of the nationals will publish nude male photographs,” I tell my paymaster.

“They can block out anything that’s crudely offensive,” Hogarth assures me. “And the very fact that such pictures are known to exist will be sufficient for our purposes.”

“But I’m assuming you don’t want any lewd interactions between this unfortunate fellow and our naked transsexual.”

Hogarth’s assessing my credentials. Am I really a former tabloid hack who has now become a news facilitaror? Have I actually ever seriously compromised a target and sold the story on to a national newspaper or magazine? Well – yes, I suppose I have … quite a few times, covertly of course, and always with discretion. But this one could be tricky … and if it’s traced back to me … well …