Tuesday, January 15, 2008

My novels #14: Honour Be Damned!


NIKOLAI DANTE: Honour Be Damned! [Black Flame, 2006]

Welcome to England, but don't lose your head!

Russia, 2673. The Russian Revolution never happened and public enemy number one is Nikolai Dante. Sabre in one hand, vodka bottle in the other and a lady on his lap, Dante should be hiding off-world, but the planet isn't goig to save itself. And besides, he loves living dangerously.

When visiting Britannia, Dante is framed for a royal murder within minutes of arriving and the only way to escape the exceutioner's blade is to catch the real killer. Honour Be Damned! is a saucy swashbcukling romp and a good-natured dig at jolly old England.

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This was my third and final Dante novel to date. I pretty much knew that when I started the book, so decided to have as much outrageous fun as possible. Dante tales tend to alternate between light-hearted romps and darker, deeper stories. Having embraced the sturm and drang with my second novel about the Russian rogue, it was time for a lighter, frothier frolic.

Esentially, it's The 39 Steps meets The Avengers, with Dante on the run while handcuffed to a sexy woman. Throw in a less than subtle piss-take of TV series The Professionals, some extreme sexual fetishes and Dante spending most of his time in a kilt being a real Scotsman. Not subtle, but a lot of fun and one of the most enjoyable books I've ever written.

Sales weren't good enough to justify further entries in the series, although all three of my Dante tomes have done brisk business in British libraries. I suspect this book is probably out of print by now, but a bargain-priced omnibus edition collecting all three Nikolai novels inside one cover is available, called From Russia With Lust.

1 comment:

AndyDecker said...

I always thought Dante´s take on England too farcial to really work, even in a crazy future like Dante.

But this is my favorite of the three dante novels. I never know if I can forgive you your take of my childhood heroes Bodie & Doyle :-) but it was really funny.