The website of writer and poet Daniel Bennett
Here's an excerpt from the opening chapter of The Second Coming, my new novel following the adventures of hack actor and sometime detective, Billy Vehement. 'The helicopter hung level with the cliff edge, riding against air streams and holding its thrust, resembling a rogue dragonfly confused by the sight of the sea. The thud of … Continue reading The Second Coming: Excerpt
I'm really pleased to publish the second book in my cycle of detective novels featuring the hack actor, Billy Vehement. Set in 2008, the novel follows Billy as he's drawn into the disappearance of one-time performance artist, Stacey Mattick, and the investigation into the stabbing of the grandson to Brixton gospel legend, Beulah Brown. Untangling … Continue reading The Second Coming
In what has been a hugely busy beginning to 2024, where work and family life have pretty much overwhelmed my ability to write, I'm really grateful to have Gareth Jelley of Interzone publish another one of my stories. This one is called 'Drink The Kombucha!' and you can read it as a further adventure in … Continue reading Interzone 297
'The sheer profile of the city is intricate and uneven. Above the walls appears, naissant, armorial and unreal, a high hatched outcropping of huddled balconies, black rufous brown vermillion and white; the upper stages of wicker towers; helmet-like hoods of tinted stucco; tamarisks; the smaragdine and olive of tropical vegetations; tinselled banners; gigantic grey sea-green … Continue reading Charivari of Roof-life
I'm very pleased to have launched a new paperback edition of my crime novel My First London Dream, now available here. The novel follows the adventures of hack actor and accidental detective Billy Vehement as he searches South London for the missing filmmaker Felix Link. My First London Dream is the first in a series … Continue reading My First London Dream
'The sounds of his life on Davenhall Island were those footsteps in the hall at night, the trees in winter and the throttled din of the ice machine out behind the rice shop, a white and black unit that ran entirely on its own, blocks of ice spitting out onto the ground to the absolute … Continue reading Greek Judy
'They left the cafe and drove west on Sunset Boulevard almost to the old abandoned freeway, and then he parked the car at Black Clock Park, where the strolled the time-capsule cemetery looking at the headstones where the time capsules were buried. It started to rain; it seemed to rain all the time, a growing … Continue reading Black Clock Park
'Everyone else thinks it's a dump; a horror show; an asylum. That just serves to keep out the curious. Behind closed doors at the back ends of estates, in crumbling mansions in Clarkson and modern flats on the main street, in solitary bedsits and grim flats above chip shops there are hidden some of the … Continue reading Airdrie
My story 'Vines' has been published by Interzone Digital. The idea for it first came to me about twenty years ago, when I lived in a flat in Brixton, near Brockwell Park. It took me a while, but I eventually found a way to convey some of the strangeness of those days. This is the … Continue reading Vines
‘It was a black dog, though the first thing Diego said was, “It’s a horse.” No sooner did he finish the word, the dog barked, and the bark filled the afternoon and we could have sworn it made the surface of water in the quarry pool tremble a little. It was big as a pony, … Continue reading Savage and Dangerous
Absence Club 