Richard Asplin
Richard Asplin was born in 1972. He has been a stand-up comedian, guitarist, film critic, marketing assistant and underpant salesman. Richard lives in Cardiff.
CONMAN (No Exit Press - April 2009)
This is `Hi Fidelity' mixed with `the Grifters', with a dash of Hiassen and
a Ealing Comedy cherry on top. It will keep you guessing until the end. This
is a fast-paced black comedy, of who's conning who. Nothing is what it seems
and the one certainty in life for a con-man is that you can always find a
victim when he or she is desperate or greedy enough.
Hard-up London comic book shop owner Neil Martin is inveigled into a plot by the mysterious and debonair, Christopher. If Christopher can use the premises, Neil stands to gain a lot of cash and sort out his financial woes that in turn threaten to ruin his
UK and Commonwealth rights: No-Exit
US and translation rights: Marjacq
GAGGED (Arrow Books,RH - 1st April 2004)
Richard's riotous satire of Tinseltown, and how to
get ahead and stay alive in Hollywood.
Don Silver, the Vice President of Comedy at Mercury Studios, is in very deep trouble indeed. He's been behind so many disastrous pilots, he's earned the nickname Buddy Holly. If he doesn't find a hit comedy show - and fast - it will be goodbye to the whiskey, women and BMWs of his Beverly Hills lifestyle and he'll be out on his (freshly irrigated) arse.
Award-winning comedy writer Melvin Medford has a plan to help Don out. So he's a nerd who makes Bill Gates look like James Dean, so he hasn't pitched an idea in ages; so his plan borders on the psychotic, no matter, at least he has a plan…
Which
is where Ben Busby comes in. A young British comic simply gagging to break
into television, he's just met two Americans who seem very keen on hiring
him. Ben's beside himself with excitement.
Unfortunately, Melvin's beside him with a gun…
In the million-dollar world of American sitcoms, you could die laughing…
"Richard Asplin's romp through Hollywood is comic
and thrilling. I whipped one page over so fast it tore." Ben Hatch, author
of The Lawnmower Celebrity
"Big cast, big characters and jokes-a-plenty, it puts Asplin straight up there with Carl Hiaason and Mr Elton." Emlyn Rees, co-author of Come Together & Love Lives
UK and Commonwealth: Random House UK
Polish rights: Media Lazar, Kornelia Lazar
US and translation: Marjacq Scripts
As far as science teacher Charlie Ellis's love life
goes, chaos is more than just a theory. Caught giving his fiancee Deborah
an out of hours practical biology lesson (so to speak) in the staffroom one
parents' night, Charlie suddenly finds himself single, unemployed and lost
in a thoroughly unscientific world or blind dates, lust and blind panic.
If only this relationship stuff wasn't so complicated. If only there was some logic to it a scientist like Charlie might stand more of a chance. Because Charlie likes things ordered and, well, scientific, Charlies begins to research this crazy little thing called love and comes up with some very surprising data indeed. Science has some strict ideas about what men find sexy, what women find sexy and what this whole sexiness thing is for.
But they're just theories, right? You're not supposed to put them into practise. Are you?
The comic story of a young man who puts his dreams and future in the hands of popular scientific theory and learns the hard way that there is more to the human heart than a red splodge of muscle and tissue.
"T-Shirt And Genes is the funniest debut novel since The Rachel Papers. Big hair, big heart, big talent - Richard Asplin is the first blue chip young novelist of the twenty-first century. Catch him if you can" Tony ParsonsRichard is currently working on his third novel.
