For reasons, not least of which was because I could, I have published the first three Hannibal Smyth novels in a single Hardback volume. Because I am entirely sane I have done so in E-book and paperback editions. It is entirely, however, possible the book only exists because of my desire to have the hardback on my bookshelf…

No one who ever dreamed of being a writer dreamed of the day their book was available on Kindle… E-books are a very fine thing, you can carry a library in your pocket, take it anywhere you go, and you seldom leave a half finished e-book on a train by mistake… But, as I say, no one ever dreams of writing an E-book. Want to be writers don’t even dream of holding their work in a paperback, though we might tell you different the first time we do.

When you have the writers dream, you dream of writing and then holding your work in hardback, and any writer who tells you different is a liar… (or it’s just me, how would I know)

In any regard as I seldom doing things by half this required completely reformatting the original three novels. I also added a short story and a novella into the mix because they all combine to tell the greater story of ‘The Misadventures Cycle’ which may sound pretentious (because it is) but both Hannibal and I are a pair of pretentious sods at times. It is also true that the three novels, the novella and the short story do form the basis of a redemption arc, of sorts. As much as you can redeem someone as irredeemably a cad as Hannibal Smyth…

The three novels combined also make for something of a weighty tome… I draft regular paperbacks in 5×8, (or the size of an average trade paperback) the last hardback I did for Passing Place is slightly bigger than the paperback at 6×9 (or the size of an average trade hardback). I intended to do the same with this one, however, due to imposed page limits, I had to move up a size to 7×10…

In any regard, I accept there is every chance there will only ever be one copy in Hardback, because most of my loyal readers, loyal though they are, already have the original books. And as most people are not quite a mad as I am I don’t really think any of them are going to by the collected edition in hardback, that’s the writers dream not theirs… However here is the blurb from the amazon listing anyway for any of you who have yet to become loyal readers 🙂 …

The year is a week last Tuesday and Queen Victoria has been on the throne for two hundred years or more thanks to her clockwork heart. William Gates is a mad scientist obsessed with spiders and windows. His rival Stephen Jobs is obsessed with optics, “It’s all eye this and eye that…” and what Elonis Musk is up to in the South Pacific is anyone’s guess, but that volcano looks a bit odd. There is a woman who definitely isn’t the maid who keeps turning up like a Bad Penny and something has gone wrong with time. those bounders HG Wells and Jules Verne are probably at the heart of it.
The Ministry need someone to sort it all out, unfortunately who they get is Hannibal Smyth, and he would rather they got someone else… Though the alternative was being hung as a murderous traitor, on the whole he’s not sure if that might have been the better option.

This collection contains the first three Hannibal Smyth Novels which between them comprise ‘The Misadventures Cycle’ a complete trilogy in the old-fashioned sense. That is to say, the Hannibal Smyth who emerges from the end of the final book in the trilogy ‘A Squid on the Shoulder’ is not the same man who started out in the first ‘A Spider in the Eye’. By the end of the trilogy, he has been on quite a journey both figuratively and emotionally. Some might say he is a better man for it.

Well, they might…

Of course, the narrator of Hannibal’s story is Hannibal himself. An older, if not wiser, Hannibal Smyth sat in a large leather armchair, by a smouldering fire, drinking his way through a particularly fine bottle of single malt scotch he may have paid for, and smoking rare, probably illegal, Cuban cigars.
From this nugget of knowledge, the reader can determine two important facts.
The first being that no matter what happens and no matter how many times people try to kill him, Hannibal survives…
The second being that the narrator is a tad drunk, which readers may feel explains a lot.

The Complete Misadventures contains: ~
The short story: The Cheesecake Dichotomy
The Novella: A Scar of Avarice
And the Novels:
A Spider in the Eye,
From Russia with Tassels,
A Squid on the Shoulder

Almost all of stories here in are told by Hannibal himself, in his own idiomatic way, which is to say are quite possibly all lies, half-truths, and misdirection’s, or they are the complete and unabashed truth… Who knows.

As I said, its also available on Kindle… here is a handy link …

Finally… A small request. Many a lovely reader has read the Hannibal novels, loved them and been kind enough to leave a review. You are lovely people… Some of you reading this may have done just that with the original separate editions having read them on your Kindle Unlimited accounts…

IF so, and you still have kindle unlimited accounts and you are feeling generous you could always grab a copy of The Complete Hannibal Smyth Misadventures on your unlimited accounts .. Flick through to the end a day or so latter and leave a short review and give it some stars…

Yes of course asking you to do this is a tad caddish, but then so is Hannibal, and sometimes we need to ask ourselves, “What would Hannibal do?” (and normally I would advise, you to do the opposite at this point but hey there are exceptions to every rule…)

Of course if you hated the orginal and gave it a crap review and one star then please ignore this request:)

Love and happiness to all , not least because I have a hardback on my shelf and this makes me happy…