Monday 28 November 2016

Blog Tour with a Spotlight: Who Killed The Mince Spy? by Matthew Redford

Tenacious carrot, detective inspector Willie Wortell is back to reveal the deviously delicious mind behind the crime of the festive season in this hugely entertaining, and utterly unconventional, short story.

When Mitchell the Mince Spy is horrifically murdered by being over baked in a fan oven, it falls to the Food Related Crime team to investigate this heinous act. Why was Mitchell killed? Who is the mysterious man with a long white beard and why does he carry a syringe? Why is it that the death of a mince spy smells so good?

Detective Inspector Willie Wortel, the best food sapiens police officer, once again leads his team into a series of crazy escapades. Supported by his able homo sapiens sergeant Dorothy Knox and his less able fruit officers Oranges and Lemons, they encounter Snow White and the seven dwarf cabbages as well as having a run in with the food sapiens secret service, MI GasMark5.

With a thigh slap here, and a thigh slap there, the team know Christmas is coming as the upper classes are acting strangely - why else would there be lords a leaping, ladies dancing and maids a milking?

And if that wasn't enough, the Government Minister for the Department of Fisheries, Agriculture and Rural Trade (DAFaRT) has only gone and given the turkeys a vote on whether they are for or against Christmas.

Let the madness begin!


This short story by Matthew Redford follows his deliciously irreverent debut Addicted To Death (Clink Street Publishing, 2015).

Purchase from Amazon UK

An author spotlight

Now I hope that this is not going to be taken the wrong way, but when I received the email saying that I needed to write an article which was an in-depth look at me, my heart sunk a little. And that I guess that is probably a good place to start. I’m happy in the background; happy to observe, not to hide, but to participate from a distance. I am not ‘Mr Centre-stage’ and I am quite pleased to let others be that person.

So, now that I have got that off my chest let me introduce myself. My name is Matthew Redford; I am 36 years old; I was born and raised in Bermondsey, South London, and grew up with my family on a council estate. I’ve been fortunate enough to have an extremely supportive family who have encouraged me to grow and become the person I am today. And they never turned their back on me when I sat them down and broke the news to them that I was training to become an accountant.

I don’t take life too seriously, after all, what’s the point really? That doesn’t mean I am not serious about things I care about, but why sweat the small stuff? I think its all about perspective. We all can lose perspective from time to time, but you just have to look on the front page on the BBC news website to get everything back realigned. I mean, look at what’s happening in Syria and places like that and then ask yourself whether the fact that your train is running ten minutes late is actually that important.

One thing which I think is important is that we accept we are full of contradictions. I know I am, so embrace your contradictions, don’t hide from them. For me, those contradictions add colour, depth and personality to who we all are. I’ve just said above that I don’t like to sweat the small stuff, so now let me contradict that by saying I absolutely hate it when playing a game of online chess I make a silly blunder and lose. I will chew over that for ages after the event. I am quite hard on myself in that respect. If someone was to lose their temper with me over something that went wrong, trust me, they couldn’t say anything which would be as painful as what I would inflict on myself chewing the situation over, and over, and over once more.

So that probably means I have a competitive side to me. I keep that under wraps, but sure enough it is there. I am not competitive in the sense that I want to drive faster than the next person, or to run quicker than the person next to me at the gym, no, this is an inner competitiveness with myself to be better than I was the time before.

I mentioned at the beginning that I like to keep myself in the background, to keep myself to myself. I think this is representative of my star sign, Scorpio. Hold back; stay hidden in your shell; come out if it is safe. But always, always, keep your tail up and sting ready, just in case. And this is really important. It takes an age to build trust. But it can be lost in a second.

Finally, I enjoy humour. Make me laugh and I’m yours. I hope this comes through in my writing. My books are surreal, after all who else would write about food sapiens (you know, walking, talking food items) and the leading police detective of his generation, Detective Inspector Willie Wortel, family man and carrot.

So, that’s me. I hope that I haven’t scared you off completely and that you would like to hear some more about the Food Related Crime team. My debut book Addicted to Death was published in 2015 and my second book, Who Killed the Mince Spy? is available in time for Christmas.

More information can also be found on www.matthewredford.com


About Matthew Redford 

Born in 1980, Matthew Redford grew up with his parents and elder brother on a council

estate in Bermondsey, south-east London. He now lives in Longfield, Kent, takes masochistic pleasure in watching his favourite football team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, is a keen chess player and is planning future food related crime novels. To counterbalance the quirkiness of his crime fiction Redford is an accountant. His unconventional debut crime thriller, Addicted to Death: A Food Related Crime

Investigation was published by Clink Street Publishing last summer.


Website - http://www.matthewredford.com/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/matthew_redford

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