The Bad Neighbor

"A well-written and cleverly imagined crime thriller with a knife-sharp edge." — Crime Review

When part-time teacher Ollie Clay panic-buys a rundown house in the outskirts of Leeds, he soon recognises his mistake. His new neighbor, Chas Walker, is an antisocial thug, and Ollie's suspicions raise links to a local hate group. With Ollie's life unravelling rapidly, he feels his choices dwindling: his situation is intolerable and only standing up to Chas can change it. But Ollie has his own history of violence, and increasingly, his own secrets to hide; and Chas may be more than the mindless yob he appears to be. As their conflict spills over into the wider world, Ollie will come to learn that there are worse problems in life than one bad neighbor.

FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launching in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

David Tallerman is the author of the YA fantasy series The Black River Chronicles, which began in late 2016 with Level One and continues in 2017 with The Ursvaal Exchange, the Tales of Easie Damasco series - consisting of Giant Thief, Crown Thief and Prince Thief - and the novella Patchwerk. His comics work includes the absurdist steampunk graphic novel Endangered Weapon B: Mechanimal Science (with Bob Molesworth) and the ongoing miniseries C21st Gods (with Anthony Summey).

David's short fiction has appeared in around eighty markets, including Clarkesworld, Nightmare, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. A number of his best dark fantasy and horror stories were gathered together in his debut collection The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories. A lifelong fan of cinema, and particularly of Japanese cinema and animation, film has always been a significant influence on David's writing; though his inspirations also extend to comic books, genre fiction, and a degree in English Literature that led to an MA on the topic of seventeenth-century witchcraft. His previous career as an IT Technician took him all across the country, but he currently resides in West Yorkshire, on the opposite side of the county of his birth. In his spare time, and in between movies, he likes to hike around the local countryside, a hobby that has also taken him to wild spots throughout England and beyond.