A gritty pub crawl from the blood-soaked streets of South London to the elite hallways of vampire royalty.
Freddie Burns just wants ten pints, football violence, and the chance to take over his uncle's fading gangland empire.
But when a routine hit goes tits up, Freddie discovers a new kind of organised crime – one where vampires are real and monsters hide in plain sight. Good thing Freddie has a nasty talent for giving vampires a good kicking – them, and anyone else who looks at him funny.
Freddie's power to rip magical strength from the death of living things drags him to a world he never knew existed. Now he's staring down shadowy organisations, a magical underworld, gruesome vampire initiations and a blood-chilling covenant.
It might be up to Freddie to save the world – or at least not wreck it entirely. He just needs a drink and a smoke first. Ben was born and brought up in South London. He had a 20-year career as a diplomat, editor and policy analyst, working for the Foreign Office and Chatham House and specializing in conflict and politics in Central Africa, while secretly writing a book about magic, vampires and organized crime. He now writes for a living, and spends his free time running and cycling around London's forgotten corners, thinking up stories. He still lives in South London with his wife and daughter. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels meets vampires in this brutal, voice-driven urban fantasy about a South London gangster who discovers the only thing more cutthroat than the criminal underworld is the world of vampires.
