Paperback £10.99
22 June 2022 | ISBN: 9781913109875
Epub £7.99
22 June 2022 | ISBN: 9781913109936
In the title story, Inspector Dreadlock Holmes and his sidekick Rudeyard Fly arrive in Middleham-by-Sea, a little town known for tea shops, pet
shops, and florists – in short, a rustic retreat for naughty weekends. Keen to kick start their diversity policy, the two Black cops have been
sent for by Middleham’s Criminal Investigation Department. Seeing this as a chance to prove their cross-cultural mettle, Holmes and Fly set out to solve the brutal attack on Lord Montagu, a controversial political figure found unconscious with a cucumber by his side...
In other stories, an Anansi spider stows away on the Windrush; Cod and Chips are usurped by Chicken Tikka Masala; and a white landscape
gardener has a mixed-race child, Cosmopolitan Brown (named after Capability Brown), who is possessed by voices from history, including
that of Martin Luther King.
John Agard’s stories reveal hidden truths that subtly change our view of who we are and where we come from.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Poet, performer, anthologist and prose writer, JOHN AGARD was born in Guyana in 1949 and came to Britain with his partner Grace Nichols in 1977; they live in Lewes, Sussex. His collections of poetry include Man to Pan, I Din do Nuttin’, Mangoes and Bullets, We Brits, and Travel Light Travel Dark. John Agard’s awards include the Casas de las Americas Prize (Cuba), the 1997 Paul Hamlyn Award for Poetry, and the Queens’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2012. Inspector Dreadlock Holmes and Other Stories is his first collection of fiction for adults.
REVIEWS
‘... if Agard had not already been forged in the roller-coaster aftermath of empire, there would be an urgent need for society
to invent someone like him’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘John Agard’s relentless, though subtly poignant and amusing satire targets the conceits of literature, of manners, of prejudice and even of history and myth.’ -
Farrukh Dhondy
‘Mischievous, teasing, playful, punchy, these are stories to keep us on our toes' MICHELE ROBERTS
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