more special. Hedgehog Books is one those special bookshops, the type you want to return to over and over again, and it was such a privilege to hold my first event since February 2020 with Evonne and the gang. The day was blustery, a bit cold, and I'd foolishly ignored my wife's advice to take a jumper with me, but it was so much fun I don't think I noticed. We were busy for the whole event and the readers of Penrith and beyond turned up in droves. It really was a great day. And I also asked Evonne from the Hedgehog Bookshop the same question… We were delighted to welcome Mike to the bookshop on 12th June to sign copies of his new book, Dead Ground, the 4th book in the Washington Poe series. This was well attended and held outside due to Covid restrictions. Thankfully the Cumbrian weather was kind! Mike also signed copies of the new book, along with his previous books, all are now available in the shop. We have had a couple of customers that bought the first book in the series, The Puppet Show, on the day of signing, and have been back for the next as they have really enjoyed it. The paperback of dead Ground is available to pre-order and will be available from 25th November. To conclude, what I will add is I would like to thank Mike and Evonne for a great experience, and I look forward to building on what has been achieved locally for Mike and his jump nationally in the Top 10 in the Sunday Times on the Sunday
following our local event. From receiving one of a few prelaunch proof copies of Dead Ground and getting myself through over 400 pages to prepare for my interview, it was a great book and based here in Cumbria it made it quite special. In my experience of reading now possibly over 60 Crime novels, shared generally 17
between two other Crime writers, of which one was also in that top ten that Sunday, I can say I have three writers now to follow and I’ve now started on Mike’s first book in the sequence as mentioned by Evonne above, which I do have a signed hard copy of, but Mike didn’t know that!
