Overview: One Man Down: A Novel is the tale of a stumped policeman, a third man, and a well-placed shot!

Verdict: It’s 1984. Princess Diana has just given birth to her second child. The legendary comic Tommy Cooper has died on stage (quite literally). And Angus Lovejoy and Brian Finkle are gloriously oblivious to it all as they strive to enthrall the nation with their television commercials for the advertising agency Gordon Deedes Rutter. But all is not as rosy as it might seem in the frenetic world of Soho.

Following a disastrous presentation to a manufacturer of diarrhea tablets, Lovejoy and Finkle let off steam by playing cricket for an old school friend - but in doing so, stumble upon a nest of vipers involving a gay vicar, a small-time antique fraudster, a photographer, and blackmail. There can only be one outcome and it’s going to entail murder.

To bring you up to speed, author Alex Pearl’s most recent novel, A Brand to Die For was a comic murder mystery set in the London advertising world of 1983. It was actually also the first murder mystery set in a London advertising agency since Dorothy L. Sayers penned Murder Must Advertise back in 1933.

This is his sequel, One Man Down, which was admirably taken up by Roundfire Books and is as compelling as the first one, trust me. Yet another funny, intriguing, engaging and dutifully crime-hued tale, the dry humor combined with what could easily have been a rather bland, one-dimensional world of advertising actually brings forth a beautifully crafted flashback to the 80’s, and all with the centralized theme of Britain’s national pastime cricket cored expertly within.

And so this second in the Lovejoy and Finkle murder mystery series is kind of a love letter to what was arguably the golden age of British advertising, and which, of course, spanned the pre-digital era. Indeed, it magnificently showcases an era where the eye-opening production budgets bled seamlessly into the infamous creative lunches that turned into suppers and ultimately breakfasts. All now tinged with the death/murder of a fraudster/advertising executive for good measure!

About the Author - Alex’s first novel Sleeping with the Blackbirds, a darkly humorous urban fantasy, written for children and young adults, was initially published by PenPress in 2011. It was long-listed by the Millennium Book Awards 2018 and selected by the Indie Author Project in 2019 for distribution to public libraries across the US and Canada.

In 2014, his fictionalized account of the first British serviceman to be executed for cowardice during the First World War was published by Mardibooks in its anthology, The Clock Struck War. In 2019, his psychological thriller, The Chair Man, which is set in London in 2005 following the terrorist attack on its public transport system, was published by Fizgig Press in 2020, and was a Finalist in the 2021 Wishing Shelf Book Awards.

During the Covid epidemic, Alex conducted 100 author interviews online in an attempt to delve into the backgrounds, motivations and working methods of authors across the globe. These interviews were published in 2022 under the title 100 Ways to Write a Book, and all author proceeds are being donated to PEN International.

His most recent novel, A Brand to Die For is a comic murder mystery set in the London advertising world of 1983. It is, in fact, the first murder mystery set in a London advertising agency since Dorothy L. Sayers penned Murder Must Advertise back in 1933. Alex lives in NW London with his wife and two children who are far smarter than their old man.

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