Gavin Scott | Books
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The Age of Treachery: 1946 in books

I'm not saying that Duncan Forrester, who had a fairly busy year in 1946, read all the books here, but at least he might have picked them up in Foyles, Hatchards or even W. H., Smith and considered buying them. Certainly, as a historian of the ancient world, he would have taken notice of this January offering: It was the first of a new series to be known as the Penguin Classics,  and was a translation by E. V. Rieu. Over the next ten years it was to become Britain's best-selling book, and...

12 April, 2016 / 0 Comments
The Age of Austerity

One of the many books of social history I consulted while researching The Age of Treachery was David Kynaston’s wonderful Austerity Britain. Here are some fascinating snippets about Britain in 1946 from its pages. By September 1946 the number of married women at work was down from a wartime peak of 7.2 million to 5.8 million. 4 million British servicemen were demobilized between June 1945 and January 1947 and couples who might not have seen each other for years found themselves having to get used to each other again, which the divorce figures...

31 March, 2016 / 1 Comment
More Wonderful Old Pan Paperbacks

Here are four more of the memorable if artistically challenged Pan paperback covers from the 40's and 50's, such as might have been read on trains by Duncan Forrester, the hero of The Age of Treachery.     #pan paperbacks #age of treachery...

21 March, 2016 / 0 Comments
The Beauty of Pan Paperbacks

When I was growing up Penguin books were ubiquitous, elegantly presented and cheap. But also a little bit austere and even - for the under ten set -forbidding. For sheer excitement, on the other hand, Penguin's rival Pan went all out to make their books irresistable on the bookstand, and I still take great delight in their cover art to this day. Even if - perhaps even because - some of the draughtsmanship is rather gloriously bad. Here are three from my collection of Pan books dealing with World War Two adventures, of which there were...

07 March, 2016 / 0 Comments
A Train called Thomas

Among the cultural event of 1946 we must not forget the appearance of a small blue railway engine. Duncan Forrester did not buy the first in the series, a book called Three Railway Engines by the Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry, when it was published in 1945: at that moment he was driving a stolen German motor cycle along a mountain road in Bavaria. But he was back in England for the publication of the Rev. Awdry’s second book, Thomas the Tank Engine, in 1946, and saw it in Brown’s Book Shop,...

04 March, 2016 / 0 Comments
I Know Where I’m Going

I've been giving some thought to the movies which might have been seen in 1946 by Duncan Forrester, the hero of The Age of Treachery, the detective thriller set in that year which Titan Books and Random House are publishing next month. One of the first he saw, had in fact been released in 1945, but he was still able to catch up with it in early 1946 at the Astoria cinema on Holderness Road in Hull, where his mother lived. The film was I Know Where I'm Going, written...

02 March, 2016 / 2 Comments
The Punch of 1946

The venerable British humorous magazine Punch, which began life in 1841, was still going strong in 1946, the year my novel The Age of Treachery takes place. I've been able to get hold of one of the bound editions of the magazine from that year, and from time to time I'll post things you might find interesting. Nothing, I think, gives a better feel of a period than the things people might have been reading in trains, planes or in taxis, on their way to meet friends and enemies, chuckling gently at the gentle...

01 March, 2016 / 0 Comments
The Age of Treachery

I'm pleased to announce that on April 16th 2016 Titan Books  in the UK and Random House in the US are publishing  the first in my series of detective thrillers about Duncan Forrester, former SOE operative  and ancient historian whose adventures, starting in 1946, will chronicle the creation of the postwar world. As the book begins, Duncan Forrester, having spent six years in the most dangerous actions of the war against Hitler, is back in war-weary Britain.  All he wants to do is forget the terror and the tragedy and get...

20 May, 2014 / 6 Comments
The Adventures of Toby Wey

I wrote "Toby Wey" to be the sort of novel I myself like to read. That is, one which takes me to another world (in this case pre-Victorian England), has a hero who's trying to achieve something against the odds, is full of action, and tells me something about our world I didn't know before. Whether I've achieved that with "Toby Wey" you'll have to be the judge, but that's my goal. Click play below to watch a video which will give you an idea what "Toby Wey" is about. I do hope...

07 April, 2014 / 0 Comments
A Flight of Lies

A Flight of Lies was my second thriller, and introduced the character of Ronald Foster, a sort of modern comic counterpart to John Buchan's Richard Hannay: a wonderfully ill-informed, impulsive young man who stands for everything the British Secret Service likes least. the novel is told in form form of letters and memos which gradually reveal Ronald's unorthodox impact on international affairs. The story was inspired by a piece I did for BBC Radio about the hunt for the bones of Peking Man. A Flight of Lies - First 50 pages...

13 March, 2014 / 2 Comments
Hot Pursuit

Hot Pursuit was the first novel I had published, and was inspired by my experiences tramping in New Zealand's forbidding Urewera Mountains near Hawkes Bay, by New Zealand writer John Mulgan's wonderful novel "Man Alone" and by my interest in the link between events in space and terrestrial biology. Read Hot Pursuit Chapter One Read Hot Pursuit Chapter Two...

07 February, 2014 / 0 Comments
Going Viral

Going Viral is the story of what happens to a San Fernando Valley teenager after a disaster in a Large Hadron Collider opens the gateway between our universe and others. Turns out these other universes are where all the creatures who populate human mythology and folklore originally came from, and now angels, demons, goblins, doppelgangers, talking trees, gods, goddesses and monsters of every description are turning up in the most unexpected places – not least the San Fernando Valley. Washington has set up the Department of Homeland Singularity to deal with it...

20 January, 2014 / 0 Comments