The Scribbler's Tale

Book excerpt: Until he won a short story competition with a prize of £50,000, E. Rick Jones didn't have any problems or at least no more than any other neurotic writer who spent most of his life in his writing shed at the end of his garden. The problem was that in order to claim the prize Rick was required to be the British representative at the Digitalquill Freedom Conference in Argentina. Unfortunately, certain ruthless people (who denied they had anything to do with MI6) thought that he was not the right person to represent his country and were happy to use threats and violence to convince him of this. However, there was another group of equally ruthless people who believed it was in his country's interest for him to go to S. America which was the last place he wanted to go because there was a frightening amount of magic realism there and that was one genre of writing he couldn't stand. Both groups regarded Rick as expendable. All he wanted was his shed.