Archives: Books

The Yellowthread Street Mysteries

Posted on December 14, 2025 by - 1FPCH, FH, FIC031000, FIC031010, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 07/02/2019
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788420068
A Yellowthread Street Mystery 999

The Yellowthread Street Mysteries

Books 1-3

William Marshall

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The first three books in William Marshall’s unforgettable, classic series of police procedurals – suspenseful and hilarious in equal measure.

Yellowthread Street Among the gangsters and the goldsmiths of Hong Bay, Chief Inspector Feiffer and his police department had their hands full . . . tourist troubles, a US sailor turned stick-up artist, and the jealous Chinese who solved his marital difficulties with an axe. Then the Mongolian with a kukri brought an extra touch of terror to the district . . .

The Hatchet Man Postman Lawrence Shang was watching a film called The Axeman of Shanghai when his life abruptly ended. Carpet trader Edward Peng was enjoying The Last Picture Show. So begins a series of murders across the Hong Bay district of Hong Kong – and a nightmarish investigation for Harry Feiffer and his staff at the Yellowthread Police Station.

Gelignite In the seamy Hong Bay district of Hong Kong, crimes of every shape and size were commonplace. But not letter bombs. Not till Mr Leung and Mr Ramaswamy were spread bloodily over the office walls. When Detective Inspector Spencer narrowly escaped becoming victim number 3, the Yellowthread Street police were grimly determined to track down the culprit.

Yellowthread Street brings to vivid life a seamy world where people called Osaka Oniki the Disemboweller, Shotgun Sen and The Chopper feel at home, a world of surreal possibility recorded with unique humour and a poignant sense of humanity.

Praise for the Yellowthread Street series:

“Marshall has the rare gift of juggling scary suspense and wild humor and making them both work.” Washington Post Book World

“Marshall’s style – blending the hilarious, the surreal, and the poignant – remains inimitable and not easily resisted.” San Francisco Chronicle

“Marshall has few peers as an author who melds the wildest comedy and tragedy in narratives of nonstop action.” Publishers Weekly

“Marshall is building a growing, iconoclastic body of work that mixes weird fantasy [and] wayward characterization . . . to produce a subtle, charged, atmospheric, lush fiction hybrid sure to satisfy those with a taste for mysteries on the far edges.” Philadelphia Inquirer

“Despite the wild humor, Marshall’s stories contain excellent police procedure, real suspense, and fine irony . . . incessantly scary.” Chicago Tribune

“Among the best police procedural series on the market.” Detroit Free Press

“As an inspired poet of the bizarre, [Marshall] orchestrates underlying insanity into an apocalyptic vision of the future.” New York Times Book Review

“Marshall’s novels feature seemingly supernatural events that turn out to have logical, if not precisely rational, origins. He has savage fun with police procedure.” TIME

“Nobody rivals Marshall’s ability to expose the links between comic hysteria and the most mundane human foibles, from greed to cowardice to simple funk.” Kirkus Reviews

“Moves at the speed of a bullet; don’t read it aloud or you’ll run out of breath.” Chicago Sun-Times

Other books in the series

War Machine

Posted on December 14, 2025 by - 1FPCH, FA, FF, FFP, FH, FIC000000, FIC022000, FIC030000, FIC031000, FIC031010, FIC050000, FU, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 19/10/2017
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440192
A Yellowthread Street Mystery 8

War Machine

William Marshall

eBook
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A terrorist has declared war on Hong Kong.

It starts with mysterious gunfire in the harbour. Then come the atrocities: bombs, snipers and an ominous telephone warning. A Japanese man with an antiquated accent proclaims a “divine mission to eradicate all the uniformed forces of colonial depression”.

The enemy is hidden deep, and nobody knows where to start looking.

Time for detectives Christopher O’Yee and Harry Feiffer to get to work. The crime fighting duo have solved some of the most bizarre cases imaginable. This one will test them like never before.

The eighth book in William Marshall’s classic series sees the colourful cops of Yellowthread Street in their most explosively violent story yet.  

Join Christopher O’Yee and Harry Feiffer on a labyrinthine journey into the darkest recesses of Hong Kong past. Prepare for painful memories, surreal humour, fast-paced dialogue and streetwise action.

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The Far Away Man

Posted on December 14, 2025 by - 1FPCH, FA, FF, FFP, FH, FIC000000, FIC022000, FIC030000, FIC031000, FIC031010, FIC050000, FU, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 16/11/2017
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440208
A Yellowthread Street Mystery 9

The Far Away Man

William Marshall

eBook
Amazon iTunes

His eyes are pale and expressionless. His intent is deadly.

The Far Away Man kills with an antique; an 1891 single-shot target pistol. A single shot is all that he needs. His first victim is a shoe-shine man of no fixed abode. His second, an aristocratic naval officer. His third, a Chinese fortune teller. The only thing that ties the crimes together: a bundle of faded cholera vaccination certificates. And the killing is far from over.

A case this bizarre calls for the colourful detectives of Yellowthread Street. This time things are going to get personal. Join them on an investigation that will send Christopher O’Yee digging deep in Hong Kong’s dark underbelly, and Harry Feiffer into his own forgotten past.

The ninth book in William Marshall’s classic series is one of his most intimate, an examination of gun violence and remorse laced with his trademark humour and surrealism.

Other books in the series

Roadshow

Posted on December 14, 2025 by - 1FPCH, FA, FF, FFP, FH, FIC000000, FIC022000, FIC030000, FIC031000, FIC031010, FIC050000, FU, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 16/11/2017
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440215
A Yellowthread Street Mystery 10

Roadshow

William Marshall

eBook
Amazon iTunes

Every attack makes the traffic flow faster.

Isandula Street is flooded when a bomb destroys a water mains. On General Gordon Street, hidden explosives decapitate a row of parking meters. Detectives Christopher O’Yee and Harry Feiffer suspect a dangerous practical joker at play.

The third bomb leaves seventeen charred corpses strewn across Sepoy Street. The joke isn’t funny anymore.

The very fabric of Hong Kong is under attack, and nobody knows why. It’s time to get to work. The crime fighting duo have solved some of the most bizarre cases imaginable. This time they have no evidence, no suspects and no obvious motive. For the colourful cops of Yellowthread Street, that’s no problem.

The tenth book in William Marshall’s classic series is one of his mostly finely written, a brutal and fast moving examination of the dangers of traffic, both human and mechanical.  

Other books in the series

Head First

Posted on December 14, 2025 by - 1FPCH, FA, FF, FFP, FH, FIC000000, FIC022000, FIC030000, FIC031000, FIC031010, FIC050000, FU, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 14/12/2017
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440222
A Yellowthread Street Mystery 11

Head First

William Marshall

eBook
Amazon iTunes

Not even the dead can escape the Resurrection squad.

A Chinese coffin surfaces in Hong Bay. Wrapped in a shroud, a headless body drifts out from under its lacquered lid. Forensics reports that the neck was coated with animal glue. Whatever was stolen from the casket, it was not a human head. Then the grave robbing begins.

There are few crimes the citizens of Hong Bay fear more than the desecration of the dead. Murder only lasts a moment, death is for eternity.

This thrilling instalment of the series, set in the shadow of the Hong Kong handover to the Chinese, Detectives Christopher O’Yee and Harry Feiffer find themselves trapped between clashing cultures: British and Chinese, spies and police, Nationalists and Communists, and of the living and the dead.

The crime fighting duo have solved some of the most bizarre and horrific cases imaginable. This one may prove their darkest yet.

The eleventh book in William Marshall’s classic series is his most political so far, and takes the cops of Yellowthread Street into unfamiliar and dangerous territory.

Other books in the series

Frogmouth

Posted on December 14, 2025 by - 1FPCH, FA, FF, FFP, FH, FIC000000, FIC022000, FIC030000, FIC031000, FIC031010, FIC050000, FU, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 14/12/2017
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440239
A Yellowthread Street Mystery 12

Frogmouth

William Marshall

eBook
Amazon iTunes

What kind of maniac would massacre a zoo?

Every animal in Yat’s children’s zoo has been killed with a machete and a crowbar. Not even the toothless old dog which sat beside the wishing chair has been spared. The act is cruel and unfathomable.  More shocking than any ordinary murder. The only clue is a strange, tawny feather, accidentally discarded at the scene of the crime.

In one of the darkest and finest in the series, Detective Harry Feiffer hunts an unlikely killer in a case that makes him question the distinction between man and beast. Meanwhile Christopher O’Yee is forced to consider the possibility that Yellowthread Street Station is haunted, and Spencer and Auden provide their unmissable comic relief as they attempt to apprehend a bank-robbing Sherpa.

The twelfth book in William Marshall’s classic series mixes thrills and horror with profound questions and his trademark surreal sense of humour.

 

Other books in the series

Inches

Posted on December 14, 2025 by - 1FPCH, FA, FF, FFP, FH, FIC000000, FIC022000, FIC030000, FIC031000, FIC031010, FIC050000, FU, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 08/02/2018
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440253
A Yellowthread Street Mystery 14

Inches

William Marshall

eBook
Amazon iTunes

The rapid response team arrived too late.

They stormed the bank by the book: used shaped explosives to blow open the doors, entered with guns at the ready. Inside, they found the entire staff lying dead by their desks. There were no signs of forced entry or a struggle. No money had been taken. There were just bodies. Nine ordinary people, killed in cold blood.

A case this extraordinary calls for Harry Feiffer, Hong Bay’s finest detective. The problem is, he has no motive, no suspects and no clues. Has someone finally committed the perfect crime?

Detective Christopher O’Yee is wandering the streets of Hong Kong impersonating a homeless person. His orders from intelligence are to scrawl the word ETERNITY onto sidewalks with a piece of yellow chalk, and to carry a coat hanger at all times. He has no idea why.

PCs Spencer and Auden have been ordered to investigate a series of attempted suicides at the futuristic psychiatric Institute of Yu. Before long they will be battling Mongolian hordes and a flock of warrior seagulls.

The fourteenth book in William Marshall’s series is a return to classic form. A crazed medley of action and humour wrapped in a mazy plot that examines serious issues and asks profound questions.

 

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Nightmare Syndrome

Posted on December 14, 2025 by - 1FPCH, FA, FF, FFP, FH, FIC000000, FIC022000, FIC030000, FIC031000, FIC031010, FIC050000, FU, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 03/05/2018
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440260
A Yellowthread Street Mystery 15

Nightmare Syndrome

William Marshall

eBook
Amazon iTunes

Nothing real could possibly be so terrifying.

The victims were old, rich and powerful. Men who had experienced everything life has to offer. Yet whatever they saw killed them with fear alone. Stopped their hearts dead. Made them tear their eyeballs out of their sockets. 

In the final few weeks before the handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese, detective Harry Feiffer faces a battle with evil incarnate: a demonic witch doctor who has been sowing discord and reaping lives across Asia for more than a century. A monster which might even have killed his father. Or so he is starting to believe. 

Detective Christopher O’Yee is packing up Yellowthread police station when a sleepwalking man enters his office, hands him a coded message, and plants an axe in his desk. The unexpected visitor has sharpened teeth, and he‘s bringing some friends.

Far below their feet, in the sewers beneath the station, PCs Spencer and Auden uncover a long forgotten menace – the mother of all unexploded bombs. Twenty foot of blue steel filled with anti-tamper devices and high explosives. For Spencer, this is a dream come true.

The penultimate book in William Marshall’s series is one of his best. A crazed meditation on the loss of empire, childhood and sanity, told in his inimitable madcap style.

Other books in the series

To the End

Posted on December 14, 2025 by - 1FPCH, FA, FF, FFP, FH, FIC000000, FIC022000, FIC030000, FIC031000, FIC031010, FIC050000, FU, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 03/05/2018
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440277
A Yellowthread Street Mystery 16

To the End

William Marshall

eBook
Amazon iTunes

One last chance for justice.

Charlie Porter, the head of Hong Kong’s anti-triad unit, has been murdered. He was DCI Harry Feiffer’s lifelong friend. But Hong Kong is returning to Chinese rule. The chains of command have been broken. Yellowthread police station stands empty. With no authority, nobody to help, and just days to go until he returns his badge, has time finally run out for Hong Kong’s finest detective?

PCs Spencer and Auden have been summoned to Tiger Dragon Square by the mysterious Duke of Extended Holiness. Black-robed warriors, cannon fire and the cursed dungeons of the Geomancer’s castle await them. 

Meanwhile Detective Christopher O’Yee has nothing left to do but pay off his informants. Not the best day for a visit by Colonel Claude Kong of the Chinese People’s Police.

The final book in William Marshall’s series is one of his most reflective, bringing together his thoughts on China, the inevitability of change, and the slippery nature of justice in a moving and fitting conclusion to the inimitable series.

Other books in the series

The Bandy Papers

Posted on December 14, 2025 by - FIC032000, FJM, Social comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 13/12/2018
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788420075
The Bandy Papers 999

The Bandy Papers

Books 1-3

Donald Jack

eBook
Amazon iTunes

“I enjoyed every word . . . terrifically funny.” P.G. Wodehouse

With his disturbingly horse-like face and a pious distaste for strong drink and bad language, young Bartholomew Bandy doesn’t seem cut out for life in the armed services, as we meet him at the start of the First World War. 

Yet he not only survives the dangers and squalor of the infantry trenches, he positively thrives in the Royal Flying Corps, revealing a surprising aptitude for splitarsing Sopwith Camels and shooting down the Hun. He even manages to get the girl. 

Donald Jack’s blackly humorous Bandy memoirs are classics of their kind. Against an unshrinkingly depicted backdrop of war and its horrors, his anti-hero’s adventures are both gripping and shockingly funny.

Join Bartholomew Bandy in battle, in the skies and in all sorts of scrapes with this collection of the first three titles in the Bandy Papers series: Three Cheers for Me, That’s Me in the Middle and It’s Me Again.

What people are saying about The Bandy Papers:

“Reading can lead to involuntary bursts of loud laughter.”

“Very descriptive, full of air combats and written with a fine eye for period detail . . . there is quite simply no finer book of its kind. Highly recommended.”

“It is clear that Bandy likely should’ve been killed several times, but very likely the Grim Reaper was laughing too hard to hold his scythe straight . . .”

“Hysterically funny! . . . each book is another installment in the continuing saga of a Canadian and his adventures in war, the world, and women.”

“I have yet to find another author with the wit and humor of Donald Jack.”

Editorial reviews:

“Jack does more than play it for laughs . . . The mingling of humor and horror is like a clown tap-dancing on a coffin, but Jack is skillful enough to get away with it.” Time Magazine

“Funny. Very. Donald Jack has as light a touch with this fragile art as his hero has on throttle of a Sopwith Camel. Excessive corn is avoided in favour of wit and a delight in life.” New York Times

“Bartholomew Bandy is the most remarkable hero (or anti-hero) since Harold Lloyd impersonated the Freshman.” Chicago Tribune

“To know Bandy is to love him . . . you tend to gallop through and come hurtling out at the end panting for more.” The Sunday Sun

“For those to whom Bandy is a newcomer, what a treat is in store.” Toronto Star

Other books in the series