Daniel Draym

After a pernicious career in the darkest arts, Daniel Draym spends his decrepit final years dreaming wistful fantasies of world domination in the crypts of his inaccessible Antarctic citadel. His only regret is that the end days are arriving through no agency of his own.

Savouring a tumbler of vintage bile, he dips his quill in an inkwell filled with the blood of the last Sumatran rhino. He’s about to cover reams of priceless vellum, scrubbed clean with pumice stones by underpaid minions, with his near-illegible scrawl. An inevitable sequel is in the making.

Honestly? The text above is featured on the back cover of my novel Dream Whisperer, and I’ve had some fun with it. Admit that it sounds better than, ‘sixty-year-old Flemish retired banker wrote his first novel’. And anyway, I’d never use the blood of a Sumatran rhino to write my books. It’s too thick and clogs up my pen.