Books in the Dedalus Original Fiction In Paperback series

Equal parts crime novel and state-of-the-nation exploration of modern Greece, George Zakiris takes on an offer of work which increasingly challenges him with choices between poverty and collusion in crime.

NGO worker Gwen refuses to leave Afghanistan as the 1990s takeover by the Taliban sets in. Her ideas for protecting and empowering the community she is working with take an opportunistic, opium-related turn. Fifteen years later Gwen is helping migrants in the UK, set to clash with her daughter as her past catches up with her.

The Runes Have Been Cast is a black comedy of darkest hue about academic and literary life set in Oxford and St Andrews in the early 60s. A tin of alphabet spaghetti brought about Lancelyn's first encounter with the apparently supernatural. Unfortunately it was not to be his last. Runes, ghosts and spaghetti apart, there is much for Lancelyn to be afraid of: the future, women, Critical Theory, sex romps, The Times' crossword puzzle, succubi and creative writing classes. The pages of The Runes Have Been Cast are haunted by M.R. James, Thomas de Quincey, Mr. Raven, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Iron Foot Jack, J.R.R. Tolkien and an anonymous tramp. "I do not think that I can have read a novel which makes so many references to actual works that I have never heard off. With a fairly complex plot, ghosts popping in and out, strange but colourful academics, much mirth and mockery, two young men too full of themselves, a rampaging sex goddess, lots of interesting books and authors, intertextuality galore, the idea of God as a novelist, immersive literature and Tolkien and his bloody elves, this book is a thoroughly enjoyable read." -John Alvey in The Modern Novel