Hello! There are a few Stuart Caldwells around – so to make it clear, I’m the one who was born and bred in Stratford-upon-Avon. I attended the same school as Shakespeare but was impolitely asked to leave at age 14 (by coincidence, the same age as The Bard himself). Like Will, I left the town to find fame and fortune – but unlike Will, I returned without having become the greatest writer in the history of the world. There is still time though.
I’ve been writing in various guises for over 40 years and have been married to the long-suffering Louise for almost as long. We have three grown-up children who seem to tut a lot. I admit to being obsessive about writing, Aston Villa, the saxophone, dark chocolate digestives, medieval guildhalls and mud.
My first four books are all slightly surreally funny and were a pleasure to write. My fifth book, Blood beneath the Edelweiss, is deadly serious, more challenging but was equally pleasurable to create. I shall write a sequel, as it gives me the perfect excuse to go hiking in the Alps!
New … my first Swiss-noir mystery:
As Switzerland’s glaciers melt, these ancient symbols of the nation’s stability are revealing uncomfortable secrets. Called to investigate a murder from nearly three decades ago, Police Squad Leader Joris Büchmann uncovers some chilling truths about recent Swiss history that many would prefer to keep buried. But time isn’t on his side … Switzerland has a thirty-year Statute of Limitations for murders …
1964: a dying man lies choking outside a Birmingham jazz club, the mouthpiece of a trumpet rammed into his throat.
1994: when underachieving journalist Stanley Snout spots his dad’s old car in a vintage tv film, he embarks on a chaotic investigation to discover why he suddenly disappeared 30 years previously.
It’s a mystery with roots in 1930’s Berlin. to solve it will call for ingenuity, powerful antiseptic ointments and several pair of multi-pocket action trousers.
1996: decades after the reported death of aviatrix Amelia Earhart, the truth of her disappearance continues to fuel conspiracy theories. Will a humble baker from Stratford-upon-Avon unwittingly help expose the truth?
Cheery Bob Spratt collects belly-button fluff, puts on shows at a local care home and is the loyal but long-suffering husband of the OCD-denying Muriel. When he agrees to become a doppelganger for a depressed rock legend who’s broken his penis, Bob changes the course of his life and triggers a series of events that could one day send shockwaves across the world. His only problem is, someone wants him dead …
‘Even in my wildest 1970s visions of life with Debbie Harry, I never thought of tandem skydiving with her … an original piece of work’
RICHARD HOWARTH, STRATFORD HERALD
“Mrs Flobberton, you’re trying to seduce me!”
Parkin Pollock’s life is mapped out - but he’s not sure if he wants to follow the route. Feeling like a fish out of water he gets reeled-in by a middle-aged alcoholic, then takes the bait from her daughter, whilst gradually losing hope of ever hooking the girl he met at Grimsby bus depot.
A beginner’s guide to dipping your haddock reimagines Charles Webb’s THE GRADUATE - relocating the story from the sunny millionaire suburbs of pre-hippie California, to a pre-punk council estate in the damp English Midlands. For Benjamin Braddock read Parkin Pollock, an award-winning fishmonger’s apprentice who’s worried about his future!
Lost for four centuries - a disturbulating collection of The Bard’s earliest work!
In 1998 Dr Filbert Fagg exhumed a rusting biscuit tin from the foundations of a Victorian public lavatory in Stratford-upon-Avon. Inside was a wodgery of brittle manuscripts which would discombobularise the literary world for the next two decades.
Finally in 2021 Shakespearean scholars unanimously agreed that the papers, now known as The Fagg Packet, are the earliest known quillyings of none other than the Bard of Avon.
Mostly penned between ages 5 and 12 the verses give us a splandywold insight into the formative years of young William, his pre-pubescent befuddlements and the psychological trauma inflicted by his ridiculous hairstyle.
