TOMMY THE BRUCE
JAMES YORKSTON
AN UNSETTLING, ATMOSPHERIC NOIR SET IN THE REMOTE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS.
Meet Tommy Bruce, an anti-hero as unlike his historical namesake as could be imagined – very nearly spineless and not at all the man to save himself, until you push him too far... Tommy Bruce is washed-up in a ramshackle hotel inherited from dead parents in the armpit of Perthshire. Saddled with debt, grotty premises that are falling down around him and a crippling loneliness, Tommy is slowly but determinedly drinking himself and his business out of existence.
Until one day, out of the blue, Fiona McLean blows into Tommy’s life and the hotel. With the light she brings, Tommy’s fortunes might just be turning around. But in her wake has also slipped in darkness – names and faces from the past who mean Tommy no goodwill at all, criminal forces that threaten to ruin him, the hotel and what little happiness he’s managed, haplessly, to cobble together.
Tommy the Bruce is a precise, chilling and all too believable crime novel – a shot of Southern Gothic poured out in the central Highlands. Perfect for fans of Close to Home by Michael Magee, Elmet by Fiona Mozley and The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin.
‘James is a brilliant writer, he never fails to deliver something unique’
– SAM HEUGHAN
JANUARY 2025 oldcastlebooks.co.uk /tommy-the-bruce
PBO 978-0-85730-594-7 £10.99 // FORMAT B format (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 320pp // EB 978-0-85730-595-4 £6.99
CATEGORY Literary Fiction/Crime
RIGHTS World English Language // AUTHOR LOCATION Fife, UK
JAMES YORKSTON is a singersongwriter and author from the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. Since signing to Domino Records in 2001, James has released a steady flow of highly acclaimed, multi-instrument, acoustic based albums. James’s 2021 album
The Wide, Wide River was called ‘A beautiful experience’ by Clash and ‘Another career highlight’ by the Scotsman. In 2014, Yorkston formed a writing trio known as Yorkston / Thorne / Khan. Their album Navarasa – Nine Emotions was named the Guardian’s ‘Folk Album of the Year’ 2020. James is the author of It’s Lovely to be Here – The Touring Diaries of a Scottish Gent (Domino Press/Faber), 3 Craws (Freight Press) and The Book of the Gaels (Oldcastle Books).
jamesyorkston.co.uk
@jamesyorkston
FIRST CLASS COMRADES
THE STASI IN THE COLD WAR, 1945 - 1961
J. BOULTER
WRITTEN WITH ACCESS TO RARELY-SEEN STASI ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS, FIRST CLASS COMRADES INVESTIGATES NEW AND FORGOTTEN ASPECTS OF COLD WAR HISTORY.
No country in history has been more deeply penetrated by spies than divided Germany after the Second World War. Among them were the ‘first class comrades’ of the Stasi - the East German Ministry for State Security. The early Cold War saw the Stasi establish itself as one of the world’s most notorious spy and secret police agencies.
Drawing on previously unexamined files from the Stasi archives, First Class Comrades tells the Stasi story from a fresh perspective: how it helped to create a new European state, how its foreign intelligence service became one of the most successful ever, and how its spy-catchers tackled vigorous attempts by the West to infiltrate East Germany - attempts that influenced the decision to build the Berlin Wall.
Full of new insights and little-known facts about the Stasi and Cold War espionage, and featuring newly discovered details of the Stasi’s operational methods, First Class Comrades shines a light on this lesser-known period of Stasi history, and why its stories and lessons still matter today.
‘A fascinating deep dive into the murky waters of Cold War espionage and the early days of East Germany’s notorious secret police’
– NICK RENNISON
‘An impressive work... Boulter really widens the perspective on the Stasi’
– DIETER BACHER, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for War Studies
Perfect for readers interested in twentieth-century European politics, military history, true crime and espionage narratives. For fans of Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer, readers of Christopher Andrew’s magisterial history of MI5 and Ben Macintyre’s popular espionage histories.
FEBRUARY 2025 oldcastlebooks.co.uk /first-class-comrades
ROYAL HB (234x156mm) 978-0-85730-520-6 £79
ROYAL PB (234x 156mm) 978-0-85730-609-8 £28.99
PAGE EXTENT 732pp + 16pp // EB 978-0-85730-521-3 £22.99 /
CATEGORY History // RIGHTS World // AUDIO EDITION Tantor Media
AUTHOR LOCATION North Yorkshire, UK
Born in London, J. BOULTER has spent many years living and working in continental Europe. Boulter’s articles on espionage history and literature have been published in the Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies, the American Intelligence Journal, and Crime Time magazine, among others.
oldcastlebooks.co.uk/j-boulter
A PERSON IS A PRAYER
AMMAR KALIA
AN INTENSELY MOVING, LYRICAL AND WRYLY HUMOROUS DEBUT NOVEL BY GUARDIAN WRITER AMMAR KALIA.
Bedi and Sushma’s marriage is arranged. When they first meet, they stumble through a faltering conversation about happiness and hope and agree to go in search of these things together. But even after their children Selena, Tara and Rohan are grown up and have their own families, Bedi and Sushma are still searching.
Years later, the siblings attempt to navigate life without their parents. As they travel to the Ganges to unite their father’s ashes with the opaque water, it becomes clear that each of them has inherited the same desire to understand what makes a life happy, the same confusion about this question and the same enduring hope.
A Person is a Prayer plumbs the depths of the spaces between family members and the silence that rushes in like a flood when communication deteriorates. It is about how short a life is and how the choices we make can ripple down generations.
‘Soulful, funny and daring... From the bursting white rapids of the Ganges, to the nail-rapping table tops of a Hounslow kitchen, Kalia proves himself a transportive and stylish novelist’
VOGUE
‘This rich debut... has poignancy and focus. Telling the story over the course of three single days spanning six decades, Kalia interrogates the fundamental question of what makes a life happy through characters all striving for a better future’
OBSERVER
MARCH 2025 oldcastlebooks.co.uk /a-person-is-a-prayer
PB 978-0-85730-604-3 £10.99 // FORMAT B Format (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 288pp // EB 978-0-85730-586-2 £6.99 (Available now)
OTHER FORMATS (Available now) Demy HB 978-0-85730-585-5 £18.99
& Royal PB Export 978-0-85730-589-3 £14.99
CATEGORY Literary Fiction // RIGHTS World English Language
OTHER PUBLISHERS Penguin Random House India – India
AUDIO EDITION W F Howes (UK) & Tantor Media (US)
AUTHOR LOCATION London, UK
** A 2024 literary highlight in Esquire, Vogue, GQ, i-D and Dazed **
AMMAR KALIA is a writer, musician and journalist living in London. Since 2019, he has been the Guardian’s Global Music Critic and he has written for publications including the Observer, BBC, Dazed, Mixmag, Economist, Downbeat and Crack Magazine. In 2020 he published a collection of poetry and an accompanying album, Kintsugi: Jazz Poems for Musicians Alive and Dead, and in 2022 his essay on music and identity was included in the collection Haramacy A Person is a Prayer is Kalia’s debut novel and was shortlisted for the Unbound Firsts Prize in 2022.
ammarkalia.com @kendrick_ammar_1
THE PEN IS MIGHTIER
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PUNK ROCKER
EDWARD TUDOR POLE
A FASCINATING BEHIND-THE-SCENES ACCOUNT OF THE PUNK ROCK WORLD, A CAREER IN SHOW BUSINESS AND A LIFETIME SPENT ON STAGE, WRITTEN BY LEGENDARY MUSICIAN AND ONE-TIME SEX PISTOL EDWARD TUDOR POLE.
Best known for forming and fronting the punk band Tenpole Tudor in 1977, Edward Tudor Pole eventually came to prominence after appearing in the film The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle as a possible replacement for Johnny Rotten in the Sex Pistols.
In a series of amusing, nostalgic and sometimes outrageous stories, told with candour and wit, Tudor Pole recounts his fascinating youth pre-punk and during the time of Sid Vicious and The Clash before he moved on to an acting career appearing in numerous films and plays including Sid & Nancy, Absolute Beginners, a long term association with cult film director, Alex Cox, cameo appearances in Harry Potter and Game of Thrones and a stint presenting The Crystal Maze.
The Pen is Mightier tells of how a troubled start can lead to a happy ending. Tudor Pole writes a fast-paced account of a life spent exploring every avenue of show business before finding out where you belong, taking the reader through his eclectic career as a punk rock band leader, hit songwriter, top 10 pop star, movie actor, TV presenter, West-End leading man and long-term touring musician.
‘If I had to be abandoned on a desert island with an actor, I can think of no better co-castaway than Ed. His book is tremendous – particularly when he writes about the early days of punk. He was there, man! He lived it, and his storytelling is vivid and exciting’
– ALEX COX
APRIL 2025 oldcastlebooks.co.uk /the-pen-is-mightier
HB 978-0-85730-605-0 £25 // FORMAT Royal (234 x 153mm) PAGE EXTENT 288pp + 16pp TBC // EB 978-0-85730-606-7 £12.99
CATEGORY Autobiography/Music & Popular Culture // RIGHTS World AUDIO rights available // AUTHOR LOCATION London, UK
A descendant of Henry VIII, EDWARD TUDOR POLE has been playing guitar since he was ten. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he joined the Sex Pistols, contributing a song before writing hits for Tenpole Tudor and becoming a pop star in the 80s. After the horrific implosion of the group, Tudor Pole was enticed into the acting world and appeared in many films including with Clint Eastwood and in three West End shows including opposite Rex Harrison. On TV in the 90s, Tudor Pole presented The Crystal Maze. Finding the life of an actor ever more intolerable, Tudor Pole made a decision, and in 2004 became a full-time professional singer and guitarist who has been touring ever since.
oldcastlebooks.co.uk/ edward-tudor-pole
RIOTS AND REBELS
POPULAR PROTEST IN BRITAIN FROM THE PEASANTS’ REVOLT TO EXTINCTION REBELLION
NICK RENNISON
AN ACCESSIBLE NARRATIVE ACCOUNT OF POPULAR PROTESTS, DEMONSTRATIONS AND RIOTS IN BRITAIN FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE PRESENT DAY.
In 1381, a large army of people marched through the south-east of England to London, demanding an end to unfair taxation and threatening the rule of the boy-king, Richard II. During the eighteenth century, food riots, riots in protest at land enclosure, and riots targeting religious groups and foreigners regularly occurred. In the following century, mass gatherings demanded reform of the electoral system which allowed only a tiny proportion of the population to vote. In the early twentieth century, suffragettes chained themselves to railings, took part in huge demonstrations and endured prison sentences in pursuit of the vote for women. Recent decades have seen tens of thousands of people take to the streets of London and other cities to protest against the Iraq War and, in the last year, the war in Gaza.
The only power otherwise powerless people possess lies in their numbers. Riots and Rebels is an examination of how they have exercised that power over the centuries and how governments have reacted to it. From the so-called Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 to Just Stop Oil, Nick Rennison provides a concise, compelling account of popular protest in Britain.
MAY 2025 oldcastlebooks.co.uk /riots-and-rebels
HB 978-0-85730-607-4 £18.99 // FORMAT Royal (234 x 153mm)
PAGE EXTENT 288pp TBC // EB 978-0-85730-608-1 £9.99
CATEGORY History // RIGHTS World // AUDIO rights available
AUTHOR LOCATION Stockport, UK
Also AVAILABLE
1922: SCENES FROM A TURBULENT YEAR
PB 978-0-85730-501-5 £9.99
EB 978-0-85730-468-1 £6.99
1974: SCENES FROM A YEAR
OF CRISIS
PB 978-0-85730-581-7 £10.99
EB 978-0-85730-583-1 £6.99
PRAISE FOR NICK RENNISON
‘Entertaining and thoroughly readable... Fascinating’ – OBSERVER
‘Hugely entertaining...’ – MAIL ON SUNDAY
NICK RENNISON is a writer, editor and bookseller with a particular interest in modern history and in crime fiction. He is the author of 1974: Scenes from a Year of Crisis, 1922: Scenes from a Turbulent Year, A Short History of Polar Exploration, Peter Mark Roget: A Biography, Freud and Psychoanalysis, Robin Hood: Myth, History & Culture and Bohemian London, published by Oldcastle Books, and editor of six anthologies of short stories for No Exit Press. oldcastlebooks.co.uk/ nick-rennison
EVERYTHING AND THE KITCHEN SINK
UK FILM, MUSIC AND TV BEFORE THE BEATLES
SIMON MATTHEWS
AN ENGAGING AND INFORMATIVE ACCOUNT OF ‘KITCHEN SINK REALISM’ AND THE ARTISTS, MUSICIANS, PLAYWRIGHTS AND AUTHORS WHO WRENCHED BRITAIN OUT OF POST-WAR AUSTERITY, PAVING THE WAY FOR THE SWINGING 60S AND BEYOND.
Everything AND the Kitchen Sink analyses ‘kitchen sink realism’ and the birth of ‘pop cinema’ in the context of contemporaneous debates surrounding politics, civil liberties, sexuality, race, immigration and urbanisation. Covering the lives and careers of well-known figures such as Alan Sillitoe, Shelagh Delaney, David Storey, Edna O’Brien and Albert Finney, as well as charting the rise of iconic British series like Coronation Street and Z-Cars, Simon Matthews offers a fascinating blend of social history, pop culture, drama and cinema. Matthews also interviews contemporary figures – including Ken Loach – about the kitchen sink era and how it inspired their work.
The book will appeal to cultural studies students, cineastes, social historians and anyone interested in the performing arts. For fans of Robert Sellers’ Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down: How One Generation of British Actors Changed the World and Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood.
JULY 2025
oldcastlebooks.co.uk /everything-and-the-kitchen-sink
TPB 978-0-85730-596-1 £19.99 // FORMAT Royal (234 x 153mm)
PAGE EXTENT 320pp + 8pp TBC // EB 978-0-85730-597-8 £12.99
CATEGORY History/Pop Culture // RIGHTS World // AUDIO rights available // AUTHOR LOCATION Sligo, Ireland
Also AVAILABLE
BEFORE IT WENT ROTTEN
PB 978-0-85730-574-9 £19.99
EB 978-0-85730-575-6 £9.99
LOOKING FOR A NEW ENGLAND
PB 978-0-85730-411-7 £16.99
EB 978-0-85730-412-4 £9.99
** Includes a foreword by Tom Courtenay**
SIMON MATTHEWS has had a varied career including serving as a local councillor in London for more than ten years, a spell running the British Transport Films documentary film library and several years singing in semi-professional rock groups. He has contributed articles on music, film and cultural history to Record Collector, Shindig! and Lobster magazines. Psychedelic Celluloid, his illustrated history of UK music, film and TV between 1965 and 1974, was published by Oldcastle Books in 2016; the sequel, Looking for a New England, followed in 2021. He is also the author of House in the Country, Free Your Mind! and Before it Went Rotten oldcastlebooks.co.uk/ simon-matthews
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