Welcome
Cathi Unsworth is a novelist, writer and editor who lives and works in London. She began her career on the legendary music weekly Sounds at the age of 19 and has worked as a writer and editor for many other music, film and arts magazines since, including Bizarre, Melody Maker, Mojo, Uncut, Volume and Deadline.
Her first novel THE NOT KNOWING was published in 2005, followed the next year with the award-winning short story compendium LONDON NOIR, which she edited, and in 2007 with the punk noir novel THE SINGER.
For the past two years she had been at work on a new novel BAD PENNY BLUES, writing paperback crime reviews for The Guardian, writing and producing a crime fiction radio show for Resonance FM and taking part in events such as 2008's Fashion & Film Festival, screen talks at The Barbican and live gigs organised by Tight Lip and The Sohemian Society.
All her books are published by and available from Serpent's Tail.
Photo: Allison McGourty 2009
Latest News Site Updated 24/11/09
Bad Penny Blues - Out Now!
Police Constable Pete Bradley has done one year in the force and dreams of moving up the ladder. He's assigned as an aid to CID and working a routine nightshift with his partner when they stumble across a young woman's body. She was working as a prostitute when she was strangled, her body dumped by a riverbank. His search for her killer brings him deep into Soho's underbelly.
Meanwhile Stella, a young fashion designer with a promising career ahead of her, is woken by terrifying nightmares that echo the last hours of the dead women.
Sixties London explodes in all its ferocious colour, with fascists and Teds, migrants and hippies living in close proximity. Bad Penny Blues is a tender paean to the city, a novel with a twisted mystery at its heart.
Set against the background of 1960's London Bad penny Blues explores the murky world of the unsolved ‘Jack the Stripper’ murders of the 1960s in which the bodies of eight working girls were found in or along the Thames.
The killings sparked the biggest manhunt in Metropolitan Police history, but the killer was never found. In Bad Penny Blues Cathi aims not to solve the mystery, but rather, as she puts it, to “create a parallel universe in which an explanation can be offered that ties together a series of intriguing coincidences uncovered during the course of my research.”
BUY PENNY BLUES HERE
Praise for Bad Penny Blues
A haunting and utterly absorbing London noir that takes us to all the bright lights and dark places of the big city - Jake Arnott
A beautifully written and compelling peep into the dark side of London's past. A knock out - Paolo Hewitt
Cathi in conversation with David Peace EVENT POSTPONED
Details of a rescheduled event wil be posted in January.
Photo of David Peace by Simon Crubellier
Website Exclusive: Transmission 3
"The river gave her up as dawn broke on 2 February 1964, stranding her body on a floating pontoon in the Upper Mall. By accident or diabolical design, she lay directly between the previous two murder sites of Chiswick and Mortlake…"
In this website exclusive Cathi reads more from her forthcoming novel Bad Penny Blues.
More about this work and High Quality Transmission 1, 2 & 3 file downloads HERE
Use the player below to listen to Transmission 3 now.
(This work is intended for Adult Audiences)
New Video Now Online
See Cathi interviewed and reading from The Not Knowing in Vox 'n' Roll on the VIDEO page.
BFI Flipside Man of Violence sleevenotes
The release includes the following special features:
Both films transferred to High Definition from the original negatives
The Big Switch (aka Strip Poker) (1968, 68 mins)
The Big Switch: Alternative export cut of (77 mins) (Blu-ray exclusive extra)
Original trailers for Man of Violence and The Big Switch
Alternative Moon title-card
Illustrated booklet with newly commissioned contributions from Cathi Unsworth, screenwriter and critic David McGillivray, and film historian Julian Petley.
BUY IT HERE
Cathi Unsworth in Punk Fiction
Cathi has a new short story Sheena Is A Punk Rocker in the new anthology Punk Fiction, in aid of the Teenage Cancer Charity Trust and on sale now. The anthology was edited by Janine Bullman and features an intro by Johnny Marr, as well as new original fiction by Joolz Denby, Lydia Lunch, Max Décharné, Stewart Home, Billy Childish and John Robb, amongst many other punk pioneers of past and present. All contributors donated their work for free and for every book sold £1 is donated to Teenage Cancer Charity. All the stories were inspired by a punk classic of the author's choice.
Buy it HERE
Covent Garden Hosts Crime and the City
Cathi Unsworth recently appeared at Crime and the City at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. Click HERE to read a review.