New competition - win a first edition of Mike Ripley's Angels Unaware

Author Mike Ripley - creator of the award-winning crime series starring detective Ray Angel - is known to this blog through his books and his column on crime, spy and thriller writing which he writes on the Shotsmag website, called 'Getting Away with Murder'. As readers will see from the previous blog post, his friend Len Deighton has provided a guest blog on this month's edition of the column.

Someone once described Ripley as a writer who writes 'like a young Len Deighton, wierd and wonderful information and very, very funny'. He's also been described as 'England's funniest crime writer' by The Times and he is also a respected critic of crime fiction, writing for the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times and the Birmingham Post among others.

Ever generous, Mike has donated a signed first edition hardback copy of his latest novel, Angels Unaware. This book follows the adventures of his celebrated character Fitzroy Maclean Angel, who is not your ordinary private detective. In this new comedy crime thriller, the world he inhabits is strange and it is about to get stranger. A new born baby means no more cases, no more fingerprinting and no more espionage and, with the arrival of his aging, hippy mother, he has swapped bloodstains for paint stains. Domesticity, or the lack of it, has replaced his high-paced, crime-solving lifestyle. That is, of course, apart from the AWOL screenwriter whose mother's funeral he must attend.

I've just started reading another copy of this book and it's already proving a great page turner on the train into work each morning, following in the tradition of the Angel series of stories.

For a chance to win this signed copy of the book, answer this (ridiculously easy) question:

On the front cover of this book there is a supportive review quote from author Colin Dexter. For creating which fictional detective is Colin most noted?

Please email your answers through the blog or to me directly by the 4th November 2010. A winner will be picked at random from all the correct answers. This competition is open to international readers of the Deighton Dossier Blog, the numbers of which, judging by the little map on the side of blog, are increasing every week. No correspondence will be entered into concerning this competition
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Update: we have a winner: Bill Creed of the USA. The correct answer was, of course, Inspector Morse. Thanks to all of the readers of this blog who took part.

Len's Shots Mag appreciation of Ray Hawkey

Well done to author Mike Ripley who's arranged for his friend Len Deighton to pen a short blog post on the late Ray Hawkey in the latest edition of Getting Away With Murder, on the Shots website.

Deighton, who seems in fine fettle judging by the recent photo included, talks about the wonderful designs and innovations Ray brought not only to his works, but also to other novels. The extent of that detail is bought home in the story about the miniature champagne bottles used to market Close-Up to book sellers. I thought I knew pretty much everything about all the ephemera associated with Deighton's books, but this was a new one for me.