Sunday, October 30, 2022

The Assassination of Hilary Mantel

In September this year, the country lost one of its greatest authors, Dame Hilary Mantel MBE. Although most famous for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, another of her books was the controversial The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, which caused quite a stir. 

In 2015, the late Toby J Cole, a near neighbour of Mantel's during her time living in Knaphill, Woking mischievously created a book of short stories, The Assassination of Hilary Mantel & Other Brookwood Asylum Shorts. 

One reviewer describes the book as a fantastic set of gothic modern-day short stories - all with a common theme: they are set in and around a Victorian asylum (now converted to luxury housing) whose walls and grounds still echo its dark past. Each story is unique, with each having a tightly-written plot and strong individual protagonists.


Cover image of book originally appeared in the London Illustrated News

 

About the book:

A famous author upsets the establishment by writing a book. They come gunning for her. Can you write what you like as fiction without repercussions? Can she survive? A woman has a nervous breakdown. Can she walk backwards to happiness? The Asylum Bats have been feeding for a hundred and fifty years and are still hungry. These and other tales from The Brookwood Asylum show that the soul and secrets of an old building continue to echo through the years. This was novelist Toby Cole’s second and, sadly, his last book.


The short stories... 

 

1 The Assassination of Hilary Mantel

2 The Woman Who Walked Backwards

3 The Asylum Feeders

4 The Asylum Nurse

5 Electro-convulsive Therapy

6 The Hospital Barber

7 How to Dispose of a Wizard

8 Asylum Superheroes


Buy the Book 


Toby J Cole
 

Toby J Cole spent the first six years of his working life as a registered nurse. He later went on to conduct police mentoring in Iraq and armed protection in Afghanistan. Toby died in September 2020. His first novel, Beyond the Pales, a crime novel, is set at Brookwood Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Western Europe. A sequel was intended but was never completed owing to his untimely death. Sad to say, when an independent author passes away, in time, unless the family or someone else has had the good mind to harness their legacy, a whole body of work could be lost forever. More About Toby's Writing