Wick edition of Fleming book set for launch
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A SPECIAL Wick edition of the final book in a trilogy by local writer James Fleming is to be launched next week.
One hundred copies of Rising Blood will be available to buy at Mackays Hotel on Saturday, July 30, at a special invitation-only event.
The book, which follows White Blood and Cold Blood, tells the story of Charlie Doig and is set during the time of the Russian revolution in the early part of the 20th century.
Charlie – based on a character Fleming spotted on his travels round Wick – has stolen 28 tons of the Tsar’s gold. He is pursued by three Bolshevik armies and is trying to escape the country.
In the latest novel, he and his Mongolian henchman, Kobi, struggle east down the Transiberian railway to Vladivostok and the safety of Japan. En route they have no shortage of encounters and adventures.
The Wick edition is limited to 100 copies and has a special dust jacket which has been painted by local artist Ian Scott, who is home on holiday from his New York base.
Fleming admits he’ll miss Charlie now that the trilogy has reached its end.
“One gets attached to one’s hero and I am very sorry to say goodbye to him,” said the author. “He escapes from Russia during the revolution and that is quite something. He gets to Japan and that’s a good place to leave him.”
Fleming, however, said he would not rule out resurrecting the character at some point in the future.
He praised Scott for his part in producing the dust jackets for the Wick editions of the first and third books.
“Working with him has been a wonderful experience. We had some great times together and I would like to work with him again in the future,” he stated.
Fleming said he and Scott enjoy doing the Wick editions. “We are both very fond of the place and wanted to do this,” he explained.
The author said that White Blood has just come out as an e-book in Russia and had 103,000 hits in the first nine days but, unfortunately, the publisher discovered a glitch and no-one was able to buy it. “But the response is hopeful,” Fleming told the John O’Groat Journal.
He also revealed that an MP3 audio recording of him reading the entire book in English is available for £2.80 on a website called pricklychin.com
His next project is a book about a murder set in contemporary Germany.
“I have got it all in my head but it will probably take about nine months to a year to write and a similar period to correct,” said Fleming, who lives at Blingery House, Tannach, although he still has links with his native Gloucestershire.
The limited edition of Rising Blood can be signed by the author and Scott on the night.
Fleming’s previous novels include The Temple of Optimism and Thomas Gage.
The writer, who has lived in Caithness since the early 1990s, was born in 1944 and is part of a famous literary family that includes Ian Fleming – the creator of James Bond – and Peter Fleming, the travel writer and essayist.
