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FORTHCOMING BOOKS

EVANS SKINNER CRIME ARCHIVE

Autobiography and Biography

Amanda Barrie

with Hilary Bonner

It’s Not A Rehearsal

The Autobiography

Headline ( 2002)

Barrie It's Not A RehearsalThe warm, funny and honest autobiography by the much-loved star, best known as Cleopatra in Carry On Cleo, Alma in Coronation Street, and for many leading roles on the West End stage. From leaving home at 13 to live in Soho as a chorus girl, her life has never been conventional. She has shared relationships with both men and women, including rock legend, Billy Fury.


Robert Beasley

José Mourinho

Up Close and Personal

Michael O'Mara (September 2016)

Beasley Jose MourinhoThis unique insider account of the private man and public manager begins at Old Trafford in 2004, when Mourinho’s Porto put Manchester United out of the Champions League. Since then, author Robert Beasley has enjoyed unparalleled access and unrivalled experiences with Mourinho both on a professional basis and on a personal level.

Touring alongside Mourinho during his first tenure at Chelsea, Beasley forged a friendship with the manager that has lasted to this day. He reveals how close Mourinho came to becoming England’s manager, and Tottenham’s attempts to secure him. He discloses the truth about his dislike of Arsène Wenger, and what he shockingly said about him off record, and how his relationship with Abramovich really played out behind the scenes. Then there are all the intriguing stories behind the players he bought, and the ones he desperately wanted, but couldn’t get.

Written by the ultimate insider with unparalleled access to and unrivalled experiences of Mourinho’s life, both on and off the pitch, this is the fascinating story of Mourinho and life at some of the biggest football clubs.


Kevin Booth

with Michael Bertin

Bill Hicks

Agent of Evolution: The definitive biography by his lifelong friend

HarperCollins ( 2005)

Booth Bill HicksThe essential biography of the excoriating and courageous American comic by his close childhood friend and “co-conspirator”, Kevin Booth, who has written an intimate and vividly insightful narrative of Bill Hicks’s brief 33 years of life in all its brilliance.  Kevin and other friends who travelled the stand-up circuit with Bill, reveal the subtleties, insecurities and character of this unforgettable man, who inspired so many of his generation of comics.


Gary Chapman

The Delectable Dollies

The Dolly Sisters, icons of the jazz age

Sutton Publishing ( 2006)

The dazzling story, richly illustrated from the author’s own collection of photographs, of the exotic Dolly Sisters, whose dancing thrilled cabaret audiences across Europe and America during the Jazz Age, and who captured the hearts of some of the world’s most powerful men, including Gordon Selfridge and the Duke of Windsor.


Robert Clarke

Seven Years With Banksy

Michael O’Mara Books ( 2012)

Clarke Seven Years With BanksyBanky’s trusted friend and fellow Bristolian recalls entertainingly and in revealing detail, hanging out with the iconic and notoriously private graffiti artist in New York, London and the West Country.


Judy Cook

with Angela Levin

Loving Peter

My life with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

Piatkus ( 2008)

Cook Loving PeterPeter and Judy Cook were the stunningly attractive and brilliant epitome of the Swinging Sixties.  Married to Peter for more than 20 years, Judy strips away the veneer and writes candidly about her life with the tortured, hugely influential comic genius, and his obsessively competitive relationship with Dudley Moore.


Michelle Morgan and Astrid Franse

Before Marilyn

The Blue Book Modelling Years

The History Press (July 2015)

Franse Morgan Before MarilynBefore Marilyn tells the story of Marilyn Monroe’s modelling career, during which time she was signed to the famous Blue Book Agency in Hollywood. The head of the agency, Miss Emmeline Snively, saw potential in the young woman and kept detailed records and correspondence throughout their professional relationship and beyond. On the day of Monroe’s funeral, Snively gave an interview from her office, talking about the girl she had discovered, before announcing, rather dramatically, that she was closing the lid on her Marilyn Monroe archive that day – to ‘lock it away forever’. This archive was purchased by Astrid Franse, and together with bestselling Marilyn Monroe biographer Michelle Morgan they draw on this collection of never-before-seen documents, letters and much, much more. Before Marilyn explores an aspect of Monroe’s life that has never been fully revealed – by charting every modelling job she did, and illustrating the text with rare and unpublished photographs of the young model and her mentor.


Charlotte Green

The News is Read….

The Robson Press (October 2014)

Green The News Is ReadCharlotte is a hugely popular broadcaster, but more than that, she is a national treasure. Until her voluntary retirement from the BBC in 2013, Charlotte, was the voice of Radio 4 and voted “the most attractive voice on national radio”.  Her warm and perfectly modulated tones (“like honey with a 99 flake crushed into it being spread on fluffy scones”) were reassuring to her devoted listeners of news stories, read to the nation over a period of 27 years. For her newscast on the day of the London bombings on 7/7/05, she garnered a Sony Gold Award.  As The Times said: “Nobody wished listeners ‘a peaceful night’ quite like her.”  Charlotte’s highly entertaining autobiography will be the book, which all Radio 4 and Classic FM devotees will feel compelled to buy, for the joy of reading her insider revelations, and finding out about this wonderfully warm, funny and modest woman.  Her writing is as beautiful as her voice.


Christopher Green

with Carol Clerk

Hughie and Paula

The tangled lives of Hughie Green and Paula Yates

Robson Books ( 2003)

The son of TV host and entertainer, Hughie Green, unravels the web of his father’s destructive personality, so artfully hidden from his public, and touchingly describes the private hell Hughie created for his secret love-child, Paula Yates, who tragically died from a drug overdose.


Christine Hamilton

For Better for Worse

Her own story

Robson Books ( 2005)

Hamilton For Better For WorseChristine’s own frank and colourful story of her adventures in life, love and politics, which is by turns surprising, revealing and touching.  Married to former Tory Minister, Neil Hamilton, now a leading light of UKIP, these two stalwarts have emerged unbowed and undaunted from the many public battles, which they have fought together.


Julian Hayes

Stonehouse

Cabinet Minister, Fraudster, Spy

Robinson (July 2021)

Hayes StonehouseIn November 1974, British cabinet minister, John Stonehouse, walked into the sea off a beach in Miami and disappeared, seemingly drowned.  Then he was found – on the other side of the world, in Australia – and his extraordinary story began to come to light: a Labour cabinet minister and a devoted family man; also in a long-term affair with his secretary, and a spy for the Czech State Security agency, who had committed fraud and attempted to fake his own death to escape catastrophic business failures.

This is the definitive biography of Stonehouse, written by Julian Hayes, who, as the son of Stonehouse’s nephew and lawyer, Michael Hayes, is uniquely placed to tell the story of this charismatic but deeply flawed politician. As a criminal lawyer in London, Hayes has used his in-depth knowledge and experience of the criminal courts, not least the Old Bailey, where the Stonehouse trial took place, to forensically examine Stonehouse’s story, including Czech defector Josef Frolík’s claim that he was a spy.

Hayes has unearthed secret reports in the archives in Prague written by Stonehouse’s former spymasters.  He has gleaned much from family members, also lawyers involved in the trial, and from the trial documents and government papers held in archives in the UK and Australia.


Chris Hutchins

Harry

The People’s Prince

The Robson Press (April 2013)

Hutchins HarryThis is the story of Prince Harry, the popular third in line to the British throne – impulsive, deeply caring, and able to engage spontaneously with ordinary people and children. Chris Hutchins’s insightful and superbly sourced text tracks the roller-coaster trajectory of the Prince’s life, from a childhood scarred by his parents’ troubled marriage and his mother’s tragic death, to his brilliant public performances at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the 2012 London Olympics and his brother’s wedding to Kate Middleton. It sets out the remarkable journey of a young man with an extraordinary destiny, with many revelations along the way. Hutchins draws his sources from a wide range of those who know the real Harry: from the girls he has loved and lost, to the soldiers who have fought alongside him in Afghanistan.


Christine Keeler

with Douglas Thompson

The Truth At Last

My story

Sidgwick & Jackson ( 2001)

Keeler The Truth At LastThe uncensored never-before-told story of one of the defining periods of the twentieth century by the woman at the epicentre of the Profumo scandal, which shook the British establishment to its core in 1963.  Christine reveals society osteopath Stephen Ward’s contacts with the Head of MI5, Roger Hollis, at the height of the Cold War, and how he set up honey traps to achieve his ambitions in the murky world of espionage.  A top 10 bestseller.


Anita Kelsey

Claws

Confessions of a Professional Cat Groomer

John Blake Publishing (September 2017)

Kelsey ClawsThroughout her years visiting people’s homes as a cat groomer, Anita Kelsey has amassed a vast array of funny, cute and ridiculous stories about cats and, of course, their owners. In Claws, she picks out just a few of her favourite tales to share with the reader from, ‘Sammy the Swooner’ to ‘Tubbs: The Fat Cat Caught in His Flap’.

Claws is a must-have book for all cat lovers by an author drawing on a lifetime of living with and professionally caring for cats in their various guises and eccentricities. In the pages of Anita Kelsey’s entertaining and heart warming book, you’ll meet twenty of the most characterful cats, all eventually calmed and preened to their natural beauty and animal magnificence by the author. Meet their owners, too, and enjoy Anita’s take on the individual relationships between pet and owner.


Angela Levin

Harry

Conversations with the Prince

John Blake Publishing (May 2018)

Levin HarryINCLUDES EXCLUSIVE ACCESS & INTERVIEWS WITH PRINCE HARRY

Once a reckless rebel, now a respected role model, Prince Harry is one of the world’s most popular royals and the force behind giving the British royal family a twenty-first century makeover. How has he done it? Harry: Conversations with the Prince is a three-dimensional look at what Harry is really like, both on and off royal duty. It is written by distinguished journalist and author Angela Levin, who accompanied Prince Harry on many of his engagements and had exclusive access to him at Kensington Palace.

The book unwraps the real man behind the camera, and his own perceptive insights. It delves into his troubled childhood and the lasting effect of losing his adored mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, so young. It explores his rebellious teenage years and the key defining moments that have enabled him to face his demons and use this experience to help others who struggle with mental, emotional and physical pain. Angela Levin found a complex man who has inherited his late mother’s extraordinary charisma and is determined to ‘make a difference.’

After finding the love of his life in Meghan Markle, and in anticipation of their marriage this year, this is a celebration of the real Prince Harry.


David R. L. Litchfield

Hitler’s Valkyrie

The Uncensored Biography of Unity Mitford

The History Press (October 2013)

The first biography of Unity Valkyrie Mitford to show the real nature of her extraordinarily close relationship with Adolf Hitler conducted mostly in his beloved Munich throughout the 1930s. As with Hitler’s other women, Unity was expected to end her own life, and, like Wagner’s Valkyrie, wait for him in the afterlife of Valhalla, which she duly tried to do with a bullet in Munich upon Britain’s declaration of war. The intertwining lives of Hitler and this clever, attractive and promiscuous young woman, supported by the frequent visits to Germany of her sister, Diana, whose marriage to Oswald Mosley in Berlin was attended by Hitler, and the Nazi sympathies of other members of her family, make for spellbinding reading.


Mary Long

Diamonds Are Forever – Shirley Bassey

A Celebration of My 50 Years As Her Greatest Fan

John Blake Publishing (January 2017)

long-diamonds-are-foreverOn 8 January 2017, Dame Shirley Bassey, one of the greatest performers and voices of her generation, will be eighty. This is her unique story, told at first-hand by her greatest fan.

Since she signed her first professional contract at the age of sixteen, Shirley Bassey has become one of the most prestigious singers of her time. Her work has inspired and influenced many, and will continue to do so for generations to come.

Diamonds Are Forever is the fascinating story of Shirley Bassey told from the perspective of one of her greatest fans. Mary Long first met the star in 1963 while a teenager, and since then has encountered her hundreds of times. In doing so, she has developed a unique insight into the life and career of one of our most iconic singers.

The author s warm personal story recounts her heroine s journey to becoming one of the all-time greats of the British music industry, performing at such events as the Oscars and the Royal Variety Show. She also holds the record for singing the most title songs for James Bond films, with three: Goldfinger , Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker .

Published to mark Dame Shirley s eightieth birthday, Diamonds Are Forever looks back on the life of this incredible artist whose music has touched so many. It is an essential buy not only for her countless thousands of fans worldwide, but also for anyone who admires and enjoys her music.


Jean MacColl

with John Dalby and Fred Shortand

Sun on the Water

The brilliant life and tragic death of Kirsty MacColl

John Blake Publishing ( 2008)

MacColl Sun on The WaterA mother’s moving memoir of the hugely talented singer and songwriter, Kirsty MacColl, best known for the legendary Christmas anthem Fairytale of New York (with The Pogues), and tragically cut down by a recklessly and illegally driven speedboat off the coast of Mexico in 2000 at the age of 43


Michelle Morgan

The Girl

Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist

Running Press (May 2018)

Morgan The GirlWhen Marilyn Monroe stepped over a subway grating as The Girl in The Seven Year Itch and let a gust of wind catch the skirt of her pleated white dress, an icon was born. Before that, the actress was mainly known for a nude calendar and one-dimensional, albeit memorable, characters on the screen. Though she again played a “dumb blonde” in this film and was making headlines by revealing her enviable anatomy, the star was now every bit in control of her image, and ready for a personal revolution.

Emboldened by her winning fight to land the role of The Girl, the making of The Seven Year Itchand the eighteen months that followed was the period of greatest confidence, liberation, and career success that Monroe lived in her tumultuous life. It was a time in which, among other things, she:

* Ended her marriage to Joe DiMaggio and later began a relationship with Arthur Miller
* Legally changed her name to Marilyn Monroe, divorcing herself from the troubled past of Norma Jeane
* Started her own production company;Studied in private lessons with Lee and Paula Strasberg of the Actors Studio and became a part of the acting revolution of the day

The ripple effects her personal rebellion had on Hollywood, and in trailblazing the way for women that followed, will both surprise and inspire readers to see the Marilyn Monroe in an entirely new light.


Michelle Morgan

Carole Lombard

Twentieth-Century Star

The History Press (October 2016)

Morgan Carole LombardCarole Lombard was the very opposite of the typical 1930s starlet. A no-nonsense woman, she worked hard, took no prisoners and had a great passion for life. As a result, she became Hollywood’s highest-paid star.

From the outside, Carole’s life was one of great glamour and fun, yet privately she endured much heartache. As a child, her mother moved Carole and her brothers across the country away from their beloved father. Carole then began a film career, only to have it cut short after a devastating car accident. Picking herself back up, she was rocked by the accidental shooting of her lover; a failed marriage to actor William Powell; and the sorrow of infertility during her marriage to Hollywood’s King, Clark Gable.

Lombard marched forward, promising to be positive. Sadly her life was cut short in a plane crash so catastrophic that pieces of the aircraft are still buried in the mountain today. In Carole Lombard, bestselling author Michelle Morgan accesses previously unseen documents to tell the story of a woman whose remarkable life and controversial death continues to enthrall.


Michelle Morgan

The Ice Cream Blonde

The whirlwind life and mysterious death of screwball comedienne Thelma Todd

Chicago Review Press (November 2015)

Morgan The Ice Cream BlondeEchoing closely the glitz and the sinister undercurrents of The Great Gatsby, the blonde silent movie actress, Thelma Todd, was just 29, when she died in mysterious circumstances in December 1935.  She was found by her housekeeper in a garage in Hollywood, owned by her lover, film director Roland West and his wife, the actress, Jewel Carmen.  The inquest concluded that her death was “accidental”, caused by inhaling her car’s exhaust fumes.  The garage was 271 steps above her newly-opened and fashionable Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café.  In this intriguing and gripping investigation, Michelle Morgan, author of several major books on Marilyn Monroe and Hollywood, proves that Thelma had been murdered.  But by who?  Through her special talent of discovering new sources of information and interviewees who have never divulged their inside knowledge previously, Michelle gets to the definitive solution of  who killed Thelma Todd.


Michelle Morgan

Madonna

Robinson (April 2015)

Madonna_coverMadonna: singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman, not to mention one of the most renowned cultural icons of the last three decades. Since her first, eponymous album, over thirty years ago Madonna has sold a remarkable 300 million records worldwide, making her the top-selling female recording artist of all time. Madonna is famous for continuously reinventing both her music and her image. By pushing the boundaries of mainstream popular music with both her lyrical content and the imagery in her music videos she achieved extraordinary popularity. Morgan offers a richly illustrated, comprehensive account of the artist’s phenomenally successful career. Reviews, interviews, commentary, and Madonna’s own words shed new light on her videos, books, tours, fashion, charity work and every other aspect of her life.


Michelle Morgan

Marilyn Monroe

Private and undisclosed

Constable & Robinson ( 2007)

MarilynMichelle Morgan ran the UK Marilyn fan club for many years, and is probably the most knowledgeable person on the planet about her.  Her special talent is to find people who knew Marilyn, but have never previously shared their memories and photographs, that is until the very persuasive author discovered them for her intimate and illuminating biography of the actress’s private and professional life.


Bobbie Neate

Conspiracy of Secrets

The illicit love affair between Herbert Asquith and Venetia Stanley

Metro ( 2012)

Neate Conspiracy of SecretsAn impressively researched secret family history by Louis Stanley’s step-daughter, who made the devastating discovery that Louis was the love child of 59 year-old First World War Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, and 24 year-old Venetia Stanley, the influential daughter of Lord and Lady Sheffield of Alderley Hall, Cheshire.  A labyrinthine exposé of intrigue and cover-ups at the highest levels of Edwardian politics and society.


Marnie Palmer

with Tom Morgan

Goldfinger and Me

Bullets, bullion and betrayal: John Palmer’s true story

The History Press (August 2018)

Palmer Morgan Goldfinger and MeJohn ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer was a multi-millionaire kingpin of the British underworld, who would go on to mastermind a criminal empire to dwarf any crook of his generation. Palmer hit the big time in 1983 with the Brink’s-Mat gold bullion raid, netting £500 million in today’s money for himself and Kenneth Noye – the biggest heist in UK criminal history at the time. While murders and lethal accidents befell at least 20 accomplices and police officers connected to the raid, Palmer somehow remained unscathed. His luck finally ran out on 24 June 2015 when he was shot six times by an assassin. The killer remains unknown and, until now, so too did most of Palmer’s secrets. Few gangsters have attracted as many newspaper column inches in recent decades, but only one woman saw it all from the start and lives to tell the tale. In Goldfinger and Me, his wife Marnie lifts the lid on Palmer’s rise from a deprived childhood in Birmingham to a life of yachts, private jets, helicopters, fast cars, cocaine addiction and infidelity. His criminal exploits in Tenerife as well as his links to the Hatton Garden jewellery heist are also laid bare in this book.


Theo Paphitas

Enter The Dragon

How I transformed my life and how you can too

Orion ( 2008)

Paphitis Enter The DragonThe bestselling autobiography by the enduringly respected business leader, popular for his incisive and witty contributions to the BBC hit show Dragon’s Den, explains not only how he got to and stayed at the very top of British retailing, but also how anyone can achieve their dreams in business by following his simple guidelines.


Mike Reid

T’rific

The Autobiography

Partridge ( 1999)

Popular actor and comedian, Mike Reid, firmly entrenched in the hearts of the public as Frank Butcher in EastEnders, looks back over the joys and heartaches of his life.  He describes the terrible events which led to his schizophrenic son, Mark, being tried for murder.  The verdict was death by misadventure, but Mark blamed himself and at 24, committed suicide by setting fire to himself.


Mark Ryan

Running With Fire

The true story of Chariots of Fire hero Harold Abrahams

The Robson Press ( 2012)

Foreword by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh

Immortalised by the film Chariots of Fire, Harold Abrahams remains one of Britain’s all-time great Olympians, but as Mark Ryan’s powerful biography recounts, the true story of his life is even more dramatic and moving than as portrayed on the big screen.


Christopher Warwick

Princess Margaret

A life of contrasts

André Deutsch ( 2000)

Christopher Warwick was granted exclusive access to Princess Margaret for this authorised biography.  It is the definitive account of the Princess’s life, one of the most beautiful and controversial members of the Royal Family, who was admired and vilified in equal measure for most of her adult life.