I never intended to write a thriller series. No Way To Live was written as a standalone thriller. A Christmas thriller, at that. But I’ve now written two more books in the same world. Here’s how it happened.
Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca
No Way To Live’s main character is Tom, who flees his South London criminal syndicate. But the novel, and every other character, including Tom, actually revolves around his ex-wife, Billie. For the first eleven chapters, we hear about her from other characters, but she’s always in the background, or Tom’s wondering how she would react to a situation. She’s like Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, everywhere, in everyone’s minds, yet never seen.
Then we meet her, at first from Tom’s point of view, when we find out about their childhoods growing up together, the son and daughter of two of South London’s most ruthless criminals. In that chapter, Tom reflects that Billie was always streetwise, tough, and had a tendency towards cruelty.
We Meet At Last…
And then, almost a third of the way through the book, we get a chapter from her point of view. She punishes a long-standing member of the gang for trying to kill Tom. We see that everything Tom thought about her was correct. And yet – although he’s betrayed her, fled, she’s punishing someone who hurt him.
There’s a scene at the end of that chapter, when she throws a Christmas decoration Tom once gave her off the balcony of her penthouse flat.
Why did she do that? I had no idea, but I needed to find out.
The Star of the Show
And so Billie Brindley became the star of the show, enough to warrant a series that explores the relationship between her and Tom.
And so No Way To Live, my supposed standalone novel became the first book in a thriller series called Angel of the South. Book Two, Good Deeds and Charity, is out in September 2026. And a good thing too, because one reviewer wrote:
“Can’t wait for the sequel and the return of the totally fascinating Billie.”
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