Cathi Unsworth

In wartime superstition runs rife, but we've had to wait for Cathi Unsworth to draw out the strange links between spies, sorcerers and superstition in this, her latest and best novel. From the bones of almost unbelievable true-life events involving witchcraft and conspiracy in the mist-shrouded British countryside, Unsworth brings to life a Dennis Wheatley-esque cast of characters both real and imagined, and spins a superbly sinister mystery that had me hugging myself with delight.
​(Christopher Fowler 2017-11-02)

With an exquisite feel for the English countryside, a sure eye for a lavish occult ritual and a colourfully sketched collection of raffish, bohemian characters, That Old Black Magic is a carnival of dark delights… (Declan Hughes, Irish Times 2018-03-24)

That Old Black Magic blends fact and fiction for a well researched, evocative tale about one of the weirder outposts of second world war British intelligence. (Laura Wilson Guardian 2018-02-17)

Author Cathi Unsworth's latest book That Old Black Magic is out now on Serpent's Tail  - Pre order your copy here

                                                                                                    Site last updated: 10/04/2018

NEW AUDIO:
CATHI TALKS TO
ANN SCANLON ON BOOGALOO RADIO

Legendary music journalist Ann Scanlon talks to Cathi on Boogaloo Radio about That Old Black Magic and her previous novels, with a soundtrack taken from and inspired by all the novels and readings from Cathi, Derek Raymond and Jon Glover. It's a great career retrospective with fantastic sounds.
To listen in, CLICK HERE
To listen to Ann and Cathi's previous Boogaloo Radio broadcast about The Good Mixer click HERE

FORTHCOMING EVENTS…

CATHI AND JAYNE HARRIS AT BIRMINGHAM WATERSTONES THURSDAY 24 MAY 6PM

WATERSTONES BIRMINGHAM
24-26 HIGH STREET BIRMINGAHAM B4 7SL
THURSDAY 24 MAY AT 6PM
TICKETS £3 (redeemable against book purchase)
Waterstones Birmingham are excited to invite you to an evening with Cathi Unsworth and Jayne Harris.
Join acclaimed crime writer and ‘First Lady of Noir’ Cathi Unsworth and local filmmaker and historian Jayne Harris in conversation.
They’ll be discussing Cathi’s new novel That Old Black Magic which was inspired by the unsolved ‘Bella in the Wych-Elm’ mystery and Jayne’s 2017 documentary, Who put Bella in the Wych-Elm?The Untold Secrets.
Tickets cost £3 (redeemable against That Old Black Magic purchased on the night)
You can purchase tickets online HERE, in store or over the phone on 0121 633 4353

CATHI, VANESSA WOOF AND GYRUS IN
STRANGE TALES OF LONDON: MURDER, MAGIC AND URBAN MYTH, BACKYARD COMEDY CLUB, LONDON EC2, 4 JUNE, 7PM

BACKYARD COMEDY CLUB
231 CAMBRIDGE HEATH ROAD, LONDON EC2 OEL
MONDAY 4 JUNE 7PM
TICKETS £5 FROM HERE
Join Haunt London for an night of witchy, magical and bone-marrow curdling stories from the forgotten past and lost paths of London and beyond. Cathi will be talking about Hannen Swaffer and his circle of friends, including Helen Duncan and Austin Osman Spare, while Vanessa Woolf spins tales of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders and Gyrus introduces us to the Crouch End Spriggan. For more information and go HERE

CATHI AT THE LONDON FORTEAN SOCIETY, CONWAY HALL LONDON WCI, 19 JULY, 7.15 PM

CONWAY HALL, 25 RED LION SQAURE, LONDON WC1R 4RL
THURSDAY 19 JULY 7.15PM
TICKETS £5 FROM HERE
Cathi will be talking about the bizarre and compelling true story of the Hagley Woods Mystery, as recently featured in Fortean Times. When four young boys went foraging in Worcestershire woods on 18 April 1943, they found more than they bargained for in the trunk of a hollow elm tree – the bones of a woman whose true identity has never been established, but contines to haunt the Clent Hills to this day. Was she a witch? Was she a spy? Why did she become known as Bella - and who spirited her remains away…?
For more information and to book go HERE
or HERE

NEW PUBLICATIONS…

CATHI IN THE LIFE OF A SONG

Two of Cathi's columns from Financial Times' regular Saturday music column and podcast THE LIFE OF A SONG are included in the wonderful anthology of the same name, edited by DAVID CHEAL and JAN DALLEY. Fifty songs that have permeated the public consciousness are considered in their many differing guises – songs that have been born, reborn and sometimes hideously mangled on their journies through time and space. Contributing essays on the strange stories behind JOHN LEYON'S Johnny Remember Me and NANCY SINATRA and LEE HAZELWOOD's Some Velvet Morning, Cathi is in great company, including PETER ASPDEN, HELEN BROWN, BERNADETTE McNULTY and IAN McCAN, with subjects ranging  from Amazing Grace, Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground and Wade in the Water to Enter Sandman, Smells Like Teen Spirit and I Believe in Father Christmas…
Published by Brewers/Financial Times the book is in bookshops now
priced £12.99
For more information, please go HERE

CATHI IN DEADLIER: 100 OF THE BEST CRIME STORIES WRITTEN BY WOMEN
EDITED BY SOPHIE HANNAH

Cathi is included in the new anthology DEADLIER: 100 OF THE BEST CRIME STORIES WRITTEN BY WOMEN, Edited by that mistress of the field SOPHIE HANNAH. By strange coincidence, the title of Cathi's contribution is also that of a Lee Hazlewood song, TROUBLE IS A LONESOME TOWN and it sits alongside such diverse names as DAPHNE DU MAURIER, MARGARET ATWOOD and VAL McDERMID - just the thing to cuddle up with on those long, dark, winter evenings…
Published by Head of Zeus, DEADLIER is in bookshops now priced £25

IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY by Arthur La Bern 
London Books re-release of a classic London novel with an introduction by CATHI UNSWORTH

Cathi has been honoured to write the introduction for a new edition of Arthur La Bern's IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY  – the book from whence the 1947 Ealing classic film by Robert Hamer and starring Googie Withers came. Which is every bit as fantastic as its cinematic rendering. If you did Derek Raymond, awe awestruck by Alexander Baron and intoxicated by Patrick Hamilton, then Arthur La Bern is a writer you will want to know more about.   

Born into the Islington streets run by Darby Sabini and his gang, Arthur was a Fleet Street crime reporter and war correspondent who flew with the Fleet Air Arm in the Pacific during WWII. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, including GOODBYE PICCADILLY, FAREWELL LEICESTER SQUARE, which became Alfred Hitchcock's equally notorious FRENZY – which Arthur hated. He lived high on the hog and then fell from that distance, sleeping rough on Brighton beach towards the end of his days. Every experience filtered through to his hauntingly evocative descriptions of wide boys, working girls, hardbitten hacks and the coppers that chase them down, capturing vistas of a lost London and bringing them vividly back to life. 

IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY is available from LONDON BOOKS website, price £11.99. You can order a copy and  find out more about other LONDON BOOKS titles HERE

Cathi in London Fictions on
Lynne Reid Banks' The L-Shaped Room

Cathi is honoured and delighted to be included in the new compendium LONDON FICTIONS, co-edited by JERRY WHITE and ANDREW WHITEHEAD and published by FIVE LEAVES on
18 April 2013.

Cathi chose The L-Shaped Room, discovered while researching her 2010 novel Bad Penny Blues. The book, and Bryan Forbes subsequent movie adaptation, vividly evoke the lost bedsitter land of West London in post-War, pre-swinging London.

From Child of the Jago to Brick Lane, London has always inspired novelists, seeking to present a sense of the city, whether real or imagined. Here, writers and historians take you through some of the captivating novels, past and present which depict London from East End boys to West End girls, bed-sit land to docklands, immigrants to emigrants, encompassing all of the diversity of human life.


To order from Amazon, please go HERE

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WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM?