Michael Fitzalan covers by Sophie Gainsley

Tainted Love

Michael Fitzalan covers by Sophie Gainsley

Very lucky to have had my book cover designed by Sophie Gainsley

2029: Very lucky to have had my book cover designed by Sophie Gainsley

Murder on Cedar Road: Very lucky to have had my book cover designed by Sophie Gainsley

ABOUT ME

A well respected author

Michael Fitzalan was born in Clapham, South London; where his mother had established a doctor’s surgery in a house which she filled with children. With three sisters, two brothers and a library; full of books, a love of literature was imbued in him from an early age.

Parents

Their ophthalmic surgeon father insisted on the children going to the Lycee Francais near the Natural History Museum; this is why there are many French books in the house.  Michael and his elder brother (who features in ‘Waterwitch’) were sent to Moor Park in Shropshire; was introduced to play such as ‘Pygmalion’ and to Dylan Thomas as well as classics like Clive Staples Lewis’s ‘The Lion; the Witch and the Wardrobe’.

School years

Michael went on to become Head of School at The Oratory in Reading, where he read vociferously, from Bennet to Voltaire. Leaving school; Michael worked for Fiorucci before sailing around the coast of Portugal and Spain with one brother who had bought a yacht; in return for a single ticket to the Seychelles.

The book

Michael’s book ‘2029’ imagines a post-covid United Kingdom where smugglers have taken over and a silver ingot salesman; is accused of drowning the son of the greatest smuggler in the land. Enjoying books from a wide range of authors from Ian Fleming to Tolstoy.

Michael presently lives in Furzedown between Tooting Broadway and Tooting Bec with his wife Suzi; and their son Barnaby who is training to be a paramedic. They have an ancient cat called Tigger after the bouncy tiger in Winnie the Pooh and Rolo; a phantom cockapoo and a rapscallion rascal.

A story by Michael Fitzalan

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Michael Fitzalan’s first novel gained cult status and here are some others: Waterwitch was a hit with those who have ever sailed; two brothers battle storms and Spanish support for the Malvinas in an attempt to meet up with their girlfriends in Ibiza. They have to get from The Algarve to Ibiza, all very straightforward until engine failure and storms threaten to sink all their plans. The Taint Gallery tells the story of a modern Romeo and Juliet; the story is set in Cheslea and Fulham, not Verona, nevertheless, it is a doomed relationship. The book was shunned by big publishers for its highly charged and graphic sexual content and the small publisher who produced the book folded, copies are rare. A reprint is planned for its twentieth anniversary next year; it is still as pertinent and shocking today as it was back in 1996. Switch is an amazing mixture of Franz Kafka realism yet it reads like a Raymond Chandler thriller. Joe Ederer falls for a French girl but he is recovering from being dumped by his English girlfriend. A fish out of water in London, he chases her home only to be rejected. He hooks up with a suffocating drug addict and that is when his nightmares begin. Major Bruton’s Safari is the story of innocents abroad; a family invited to celebrate the coronation of the Kabaka of Buganda become indoctrinated into the ways of Africa. With an acerbic observer on hand, the family experience the warmth and ways of Uganda that help them to understand themselves a little better. IPG – Innocent Proven Guilty is about a teacher, Philip Hayward whose brother sold their shared flat and ran off to America with the proceeds. Philip bumps into his brother’s ex-girlfriend and she tells him his brother is back. Racing to the address she gave him, he arrives to find his brother with a knife in his back. As he leaves, his shoes leave bloody footprints and the police come looking for him. Carom – Finn McHugh and his team take on a swindler and smuggler, Didier, who is depraved in so many ways. They know he is smuggling art and drugs; he must be stopped before others take him out. The Cubans, want him dead, Finn wants to break the smuggling ring. Who will win? Remember the Fifth November – Guy Fawkes was innocent, Catesby was a broken man who brought his children up in the Anglican faith, yet Robert Cecil arranged for them to be portrayed as terrible villains. With a spy service second to none and with moles everywhere how could someone hatch a plot like this and fail to be discovered? The answer, they could not. Read the truth! One – Bullying does not go on anymore in schools. I would not bet on it. Weep as you read the terrible story of a school bully and the misery he dispenses to all the boys. Then, cheer as one of his victims takes revenge. Take a trip to a prep school in a time when kids built tree houses, danced and swung on Tarzan ropes!

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