Patrick Brigham

The author Patrick Brigham writes good mystery books, many of which are set at the very end of the Cold War and Communism. Featuring fictional police detective Chief Inspector Michael Lambert. He is often faced with political intrigue, and in order to solve his cases - which frequently take place in Eastern Europe and the Balkans - he needs to understand how an old Communist thinks, during the course of his investigations.

There are few good books on the subject of international crime, especially mystery stories which delve into the shady side of Balkan politics, neither are there many novelists who are prepared to address Mystery Crime Fiction, like the author Patrick Brigham.

Patrick Brigham was the Editor in Chief of the first English Language news magazine in Bulgaria between 1995 and 2000. As a journalist, he witnessed the changes in this once hard core Communist Country and personally knew most of the political players. Traditionally a hotbed of intrigue and the natural home of the conspiracy theory, Bulgaria proved to be quite a challenge and for many the transition into democracy was painful.

Despite this, he personally managed to survive these changes and now lives peacefully in Northern Greece. These days Patrick has branched out into contemporary literary fiction, and his newest novel, Goddess of The Rainbow, is about Greece and the Greeks.

In it, he steps away from murder mystery, because this is a very Greek story involving the rain, and how flooding changes us, moves the finger of fate, and causes us to reflect on our lives. A series of short stories, they all happen in the Greek town of Orestiada. Stories which simultaneously interlink and become a part of the whole, centre around Iris – the local DHL courier – who in Greek mythology is not only Goddess of The Rainbow, but also the Messenger of The Gods, thereby connecting the individual tales of this 16 Chapter book.

In it, there is a murderous estate agent, and his equally murderous wife, an aspiring artist looking for recognition in Athens, an estranged couple separated by time who rekindle their love, a Greek- Australian who is from Melbourne, and a visiting bus load of Russian women from Moscow. They have been invited by the mayor, in order that some of the winging local bachelors might find a suitable wife.

There is also an illegal Syrian immigrant, a disgruntled typically Greek mother who doesn’t want her son to marry at all, and a Greek Orthodox Priest who has lost his faith. All that and more; stories which come so beautifully together in the last chapter –fascinating and enchanting – which can be read and enjoyed individually, but put together, serve to make the whole novel greater than its component parts.

His most recent novel is The London Property Boy. This is a Rite of Passage novel about Mike Mostyne a man who has lost everything and has to start again on the bottom rung of the ladder. From the provinces to West London as an estate agent, Mike finds dealing in property to be a lucrative new start to his life.