Mickey from Manchester Series

England is a country obsessed by housing. Some people want to buy houses, some want to sell them. Everyone wants to make a profit, build up capital and, probably, create a pile of money they can retire on. Hopefully, too, leave to their offspring. In other words, nobody has any idea what they are doing and, as any business person will tell you, are therefore highly unlikely to succeed in their aims. Mickey, trying to enjoy the quiet life in North Salford, keeps coming across these failures. Some of them are his oldest - and bestest - friends. Mostly, he doesn't mind, but his best friend Don is a policeman and he's been dragged into a feud between building firms. Then Mickey meets his really best friend, a man he hasn't seen for years. In that interim, the man has turned into a property mogul too. Then Mickey is asked to work with and mentor a jailbird, a young man with a bright future and a disastrous past. The kid wants to build a house - on television. It's a grand idea, but his helpers seem far too committed to the vision. Are they being taken in? If only people weren't getting hurt - literally - Mickey might be able to walk away. But cuts, bruises, and then a real dead body, stand in his way. Concerned, overwhelmed, he does what he does best - try to help. Unfortunately, it's just not good enough, this time.

Amelia Hartliss, Special Agent - Melia to her friends and 'Heartless' to her enemies - is always landing the worst of jobs. Right now, she's been given the task of baby-sitting a candidate in the local government elections. The problem is, that of all the people who have put their names forward, he really is the person most likely to get themselves in trouble. He's never stood before. He's loud, he's raucous. He proudly boasts, 'I know nothing about politics!' So why would anyone vote for him? Because he stirs emotions. He promises answers. He is the 'Business Candidate', he says. He is big, he is bluff. He has blonde hair, broad shoulders and an aggressive manner. Can Melia succeed in keeping him alive until the votes are in? It seems that the man with the knife and the guy with the bomb are going to try and stop proceedings. Then who will win? Melia finds the assignment one of the most frustrating of her whole career.

Mickey is badly hurt. He was attacked by a gang of thugs on Christmas Eve and he stood no chance. If he hadn't been rescued - but he was, dragged off the pavement by a woman he hardly knew, taken into her tenth-floor apartment and looked after while he tried to recover. Six weeks passed. Mickey has never been a victim, but he was assaulted and now he can hardly walk. When Melia phones - out of the blue - announcing it's St Valentine's night and she wants to take him out, he has to refuse. Unfortunately Melia catches sight of Melia's landlady and cuts the video call, hurt and confused. She didn't recognise Romla, didn't realise that Mickey's Angel was a woman she knows, used to work with, years before. They could have talked. They had so much in common. Unfortunately, the other thing that Mickey and Melia have in common also divides them. Mickey's Dad. He has appeared, popped out of nowhere, and wants to resume communications with his son. Not bad for a father who ran out on his family when Mickey could hardly walk. Now, when that is true again, he is as useless as ever. Mickey can't stand him and makes every possible excuse to avoid him. Meanwhile, the Housing Crisis goes on. The feud between local building firms, which Mickey walked into, and is the direct cause of his injuries, has not gone away. The many sides try to woo Mickey, bring him back into the game. If only he could - but he needs carrying everywhere. Even when he gets called to the local hospital in Manchester, they can't help him. But maybe a miracle worker can. Mickey has been asked to play nursemaid to a young man in trouble with the Law. Fortunately or unfortunately he has a large and growing following. They believe he is some kind of prophet and Healer. He works his magic on Mickey. Mickey is like a stallion coming out of the starting gate at a racecourse, but he can't get back onto the track. Britain is in Lock-down. A strange virus has been brought in from the East and everyone has been told to 'Stay Home', not go out, not travel. That's exactly what Mickey has been doing! Two months is too long. He does his best to stick to the Guidelines but there are Mysteries to be solved, questions to be put and answers to be sought. With Romla's continuing help, Mickey drags his damaged body around the city, turning over stones and refusing to be fobbed off. If only people didn't continue to get murdered! And the biggest surprise of all is that the lastest victim is somone uncomfortably close to home.

Mickey is recovering from the trauma of finding his father murdered. It's not that they every got along, but Mickey feels he now has an obiligation to find the murderer, right wrongs and return peace to his city. The killing is a dreadful distraction from his other mission - to find out more about the way that developers and builders are fighting amongst themselves and constructing some of the worst and most unusable buiildings of recent times. Who is in charge? Doesn't anyone care about quality? Is it just an endless chase for profits and gaining good deals for the shareholders? Mickey is, once again, disappointed by Human Nature, but his biggest shock is yet to come. Another preoccupation of his days is to try and find his lost girlfriend. Would she really leave town without telling him? Has she lost all interest in their relationship? Battered, bruised, Mickey cannot even begin to imagine the terrible truth. Whatever he thought might be in his wildest nightmare, the reality is surely the worst thing that has ever happened to him in his life.

It's not many 'Mickey from Manchester' thriller detective novels that have Mickey flat on his back from Chapter 3. Worse, he is in shock. and doesn't even remember his name. Meanwhile his girlfriend Melia is staying at his house, recovering from a terrifying ordeal that Mickey previously rescued her from. It's no help to her Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that some of the perpetrators turn up on her doorstep. Not fully recovered, she has enough wits about her to turn the tables on the arrogant, self-assured little no-good teenagers. With the help of her old pal Terry, she soon has them on the run, and even one of their Dads turns up to apologise on their behalf. The hospital in Salford is crowded during this tale, when another major character suffers a life-changing fall. With two combatants in nearby beds, the mystery doesn't look it will get solved anytime soon, until Mickey's oldest friend Don Fellowes steps in. Still, there is some more good news. The victims in the hospital beds appear to have inherited massive numbers of shares from the biggest property development firm in Salford. If they ever get back on their feet, they will be rich. And important. 

Mickey's life has changed. It's Good News and Bad News. The Good News is that he can take a rest from international  espionage and move into the relatively relaxing world of high finance and property based business. The Bad News is that he's still in a wheelchair, struggling to recover from a bullet, sent to kill him. They didn't succeed, but it's a long and painful road to recovery. (The other Bad News is that the  assassins haven't given up, and are still making attempts on his life. Why shouldn't they? They succeeded in murdering Mickey's best friend friend Gulf, the last man to occupy the hot seat of CEO at Corsh Corporation - where Mickey is now, having inherited Gulf's enormous block of shares.) The other News - maybe Good, maybe Bad - is that a German firm called Korrup's wants Corsh to sell them the site of the old Patricroft Armaments Factory, so that the foreigners can assemble weapons for Ukraine. The parts will come from all over Britain, but the guns will be put together in Salford. It will mean jobs and prosperity for local people. People want it to happen. The British government wants it to happen. What can possibly stand in the way? In quick succession, Mickey meets more than one person who could derail such an enormous project. He needs help. What old friends - or new - can Mickey rely on, in such dangerous times?

Mickey is fighting mad. Someone pushed him into the river and he nearly drowned. Once he got out, his first priority is to find the guilty party, even if it means travelling four thousand miles from his home in Salford, England to the heart of Africa. Unfortunately, he isn't the only one making this scarey journey. The British government has decided they have too many Boat People arriving on their shores, uninvited, and have decided to fly them to the same remote location, a disturbing, politically unstable country, where violence and bribery are commonplace. Mickey is a decent person, and he can't help himself. He has to step in when he sees people being bullied and harassed. It deflects him from his quarry, and puts himself in danger, but with the arrival of some old friends, he is able to master the local culture, the foreign currency, and overcome his usual feelings. After all, he wants to get on with his search. Surprisingly, he has assistance as well as blocks and in a surprisingly short time secrets are revealed. People he has had dealings with in the past are passing through the frightening land, often on their way elsewhere, but they have information. Though most of it is contradictory, it's not brains that is in short supply, but actors - people who have the nerve, the skills, the history and the willingness to take a few risks and do their best. Luckily, Mickey fits that bill. Even though his mind is still fogged and unclear since he was in hospital in England, he successfully manages to pull a team together and foil a deadly plot, earning his way back hom in the process.

Captain Gibson is facing huge political pressure to  show his Unit is working to discourage illegal asylum seekers from coming to Britian in small, dangerous boats. He sends his top spy (Amelia Hartliss, or 'Melia') to the South Coast to infiltrate a violent and unsafe new group called 'MEGA', or 'Make England Great Again', (just England, not Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland). Then he instructs his top freelance operative, Mickey, to work with an old colleague, a man called Ian Bann, who makes bombs. The plan is to infiltrate MEGA in the north of England, (around its HQ in Manchester), and sabotage their campaign by supplying bombs that don't work effectively. Then, the Captain sends his Deputy Director, to go undercover and join 'Haychers', a loose amalgam of farmers, land owners and business people, who were going to be affected by the building of a high speed rail link from Birmingham, north to Manchester, and are now suffering even more from the cancellation of the project, even though buildings have been bought, and houses and woods demolished, to make way for the trains. England is in a furious mess, with all these campaigns going on at the same time. The three friends are not even able to maintain contact, since they have such discrete responsibilities, and the lack of a friendly face and active support drives more than one off the rails. While the work continues, Captain Gibson finds his team disintegrating around him.

Mickey is back in Britain after his harrowing trip to Rwanda. He doesn't expect to be arrested, but in confinement he is reunited with an old friend from his Army days. Her name is Ripley and after escaping, the pair are surprised to be instructed by Captain Gibson, Mickey's old boss in The Unit, to take up an assignment in the North West of England, looking for terrorists amongst recent arrivals to the country. This means Mickey can't slip back into his role as CEO of Corsh Corporation. That chair has been filled in his absence, and though the new incumbent seems completely unsuited to the role, this 'Mr Corsh' (and his assistant, Bread) are keen to plough ahead with Corsh projects, such as rebuilding the old Armaments Factory site in Patricroft. Mr Gibson too favours this activity, since he has been instructed by the British government to start assembling small arms in the new buildings - as soon as possible - and ship them to Britain's allies in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the lower orders in the Corsh hierarchy are ploughing their own furrow. Nirvana and Nina, working in the Finance Department, have their own plans for Corsh funds. This involves double dealing, embezzlement, and construction of new houses 'for the workers', paid for by the Russians! If only if was that simple. Nerve and Nins, as they are known, are also trying to cheat dear old Mrs Turtle out of her inheritance, and that campaign leads to murder. Mickey, for once in his life, finds himself in the middle of investigations, not leading from the front. It isn't any more comfortable than the usual way, especially as his new 'partner', the enigmatic Ripley, seems to have her own priorities - but isn't sharing with anyone.