A novel tribute to a late great Spartan.

Writer & Newcastle United fan Howard Linskey has paid a ‘novel’ tribute to the late great Steve Carney, in his landmark new novel ‘No Name Lane’.

Ferryhill born Howard had written 3 hugely successful crime thrillers about gangland Newcastle for his previous publishers No Exit Press, before being snapped up by publishing giants Penguin.

Following Newcastle United through the 80’s one of Howard’s favourite players was defender Steve Carney, his whole-hearted committed approach to the game was exactly what he demanded from those who wore the famous black & white.

When Steve sadly passed away in May 2013 acclaimed Newcastle United website nufc.com got in touch for details on Steve’s career pre St James and linked this blog’s tribute to Steve to their own tribute.
Howard’s novels had been promoted by nufc.com and he read the article about Steve’s tragic passing and he got in touch after reading the blog, with a new novel in the early stages of planning he hatched a plot to pay his own tribute to his Steve.

Howard was then snapped up by Penguin Books to write a 3 book series
and having already planned his tribute to Steve he hoped he would be able to keep it in the new novel.
Despite working with new editors, who may have had their own ideas about characters in the new book Howard managed to keep his secret tribute in his brand new novel No Name Lane features disgraced Journalist Tom Carney!.

While writing his first 3 novels Howard had often used the names of former Newcastle players for major characters in his books, another former Spartan Peter Cartwright gets a name check in Howard’s superb debut novel The Drop.
The first of the David Blake trilogy, The Drop features Geordie Cartwright who has vanished along with a very large sum of money belonging to gangster Bobby Mahoney.
(Bobby Mahoney named after former United keeper Mick Mahoney).

If you like crime thrillers especially North East based crime thrillers,
these are 4 of the best novels you’ll read.

http://howardlinskey.weebly.com/

Howard Linskey’s first novel, The Drop, was voted one of the Top Five Thrillers of 2011 by The Times Newspaper.
His second, The Damage, was a Top 12 Best Summer Read in the same newspaper.
Both books reached the top five in the Amazon Kindle charts and the David Blake trilogy has been optioned for film by Harry Potter producer, David Barron.