Severn House, 2006,
ISBN 0727863983 hardbackSevern House, 2007,
ISBN 0727891804 paperback
Simon Writes:
'VAMPIRE SHARKZ – THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU
The graffiti spread across London that long, over-heated summer in a great blazing rash.'
And so begins Chapter 1 of London Under Midnight, a vampire novel in the tradition of Vampyrrhic and Vampyrrhic Rites. To be more specific, the seed was planted when I wrote the short story Vampyrrhic Outcast (new edition of Mammoth Book of Vampires edited by Stephen Jones). There, a woman is hurled into a river by a shadowy creature. When she realises she cannot drown she begins to understand a profound change to her body has taken place. This is one of the story strands that London Under Midnight follows into some uncanny and dangerous realms. Meanwhile, Ben Ashton, an investigative writer, is given the assignment of tracking down whoever is responsible for the VAMPIRE SHARKZ graffiti that mysteriously appears in the strangest of places...
London Under Midnight is my first urban novel. I've added an article about the whys and wherefores to the Nailed By The Heart website. It's entitled Occult Territory and if anyone is a fan of Arthur Machen's work they'll know where I'm going with this.
The title? Around eighty years ago Lon Chaney starred in London AFTER Midnight; it too featured vampires but the film was lost decades ago. Incidentally, Tod Browning planned to have Chaney take the central role in Dracula but this brilliantly versatile actor died before filming began and old Vlad was played by Lugosi. So the title, London Under Midnight, is a respectful nod toward the Lon Chaney classic that is no more.
