Behold the Mousehunter!

The 3rd July isn’t just an important day for Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London. It’s also the day Alex Milway’s The Curse of Mousebeard hits all good bookshops. Writing can be a solitary profession so it was great to hook up with Alex the other night and swap stories and experiences as we head towards publication.

It’s Alex’s second book following on from The Mousehunter itself, but that only came out in January so he’s still quite new to all this too. And he was far too bashful to pose with a copy of one of his own creations in his hand so, instead, I had to snap him holding a copy of Johnny Mackintosh.

There are two things I’ve always wanted to be able to do, but know I’m totally rubbish at. One is singing, which is unfortunate for my friends as I have a terrible habit of breaking into song anyway. The other is drawing – Alex is a brilliant artist. When you’re a writer you can’t go anywhere without a notebook as you never know when that key idea is going to hit – plus you want to write in any spare moment. Alex showed me his notebook and it put my untidy scrawl to shame – beautiful drawing followed beautiful drawing and I’m shocked and appalled I didn’t take a photo to give a sneak preview. Happily, you can see all his brilliant mice and more over at the Mousehunter blog.