STAN ARNOLD BOOKS

"Clever, fast-paced, outrageously funny and never a dull moment. So many laugh-out-loud scenes, quotable lines and memorable characters. Relentlessly entertaining!"

Welcome to The Implosion Saga...

    Eight hilarious novels featuring the dubious exploits of Mick and Jim

- two idle, incompetent, Soho-based, corporate video producers

    operating at the bottom of a barrel no one wants to scrape.

They also drink too much, don't earn enough and get too many death threats.

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Mick and Jim owe £6000 + VAT in the form of back-rent to their landlord - international crime boss and Ealing comedy-lover, Charlie Sumkins.

They are pursued by Charlie's sadistic, but ultimately useless, heavies, Vlad and Vic. The chase involves frantic attempts to preserve their lives and reproductive organs. They battle inefficiently scheduled sex with Southsea's most colour-blind landlady, violent amateur dramatics and AK-47-wielding milliners.

As you would expect, they end up lost in the scrub desert surrounding Las Vegas, where, with cactus-punctured groins, they become targets for a pack of Reservoir Dogs' lookalikes.

Later, they go LSD-tripping with the stars of Easy Rider, escape from Thelma and Louise wannabes, and make a romantic commitment to a bourbon-fuelled Elvis impersonator - all before the big, unexpected, life-threatening sort-out in Nevada's most lurid theatrical environment.

Ah! But did their experiences change them?

Mrs Hathaway, Mick and Jim's 60-year-old office cleaning lady, is a martial arts/extreme sports expert - skills she developed exclusively through online and home video courses.

Daring Dooz is a highly successful global magazine, full of fictitious adventure stories featuring scantily clad pole- dancers.

Mrs Hathaway, however, is the real thing. Folowing her brutal despatching of an armed bank robber in Enfield High Street, she becomes world-famous and eventually accepts a series of global challenges for a £2 million advance. The challenges involve shark attacks, time warps, anacondas, MiG fighters and the ironmongers/sex boutique at the Hotel du Lack.

In a remote Amazon village, they are threatened by sex-mad caimans, exploding missionaries and murderous bandits. Mick and Jim, whenever their hiding places are discovered, are coerced into videoing every terrifying step.

Mick and Jim are forced into an unexpected holiday in Lanzarote. They book into Sea View, a bizarre re-creation of a 1950's Blackpool boarding house, right next to the beach.

On their first afternoon, while enjoying a pedalo ride, they are threatened with assassination by both the CIA and KGB. Subsequently, they are drawn into a web of lies, deceit and sexual excess involving the ultra-secretive MI7 knitting circle.

After five, bizarre, unexplained deaths, they endure a spell in cell 102 with only a bucket for company. Later, they direct a video featuring a clapped-out helicopter and two Florida swamp bikers with the goal of saving the Chief of Police's sex life.

You will also find out why you should never punch a seagull or read Enid Blyton under the bedclothes with an industrial blowtorch. The climactic, underground, volcanic showdown is orchestrated by Polly, the world's most foul-beaked parrot.

Mick and Jim are lured to deepest Yorkshire to film a bogus 'most haunted' video at a 13th-century castle built by architectural vandal, Gregory the Imbiber.

The local villagers are having mass hallucinations about Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and werewolves. A mysterious death, leads our heroes to places they don't want to be - such as trapped 350 feet underground with a jar of pickled whelks, or facing the wrath of Scotland Yard's nastiest - DCI Cragg.

Their futile attempts to solve the mystery are complicated by terrifying paranormal activities, including bloodstained brides and a moat full of dead faces.

Adding to the fun are mad, frost-bitten Dutch neuroscientists, pitchfork and burning-torch village mobs and Hollywood glamour and glitz, featuring Matt Damon and a lunatic film producer intent on making Bourne and Bred in Yorkshire.

Just another day in the Dales...

When the New York slasher movie awards - The Bleeders - turn into a riot, Mick and Jim are offered a mysterious, but outrageously lucrative, escape route to Hong Kong.

Unexpectedly arriving in Darwin, Australia, they are kidnapped and held in the deserted, snake-infested, Broken Nose Hotel - 300 miles from the nearest can of lager. Escape attempts result in severely damaged reproductive bits, while igniting the fury of ex-SAS Sgt Major and international, freelance, unarmed-combat specialist, Rosebud Rochester.

Thanks to her aggressive, but romantic, liaison with Baz who likes being locked in the attic, Mick and Jim eventually escape to a local river, where, on an improvised raft-cum-toilet block, they fight off copulating saltwater crocodiles and sharks, while being battered by tropical storms and lightning strikes.

After an ignominious escape, they arrive in Hong Kong and have to solve an ancient Chinese puzzle. Why are they there? How does James Bond fit in? Why are they trapped in a luxury suite inside a hollowed-out volcano? Who is Bert Grit? And why is Pussy Galore working as a toilet attendant in Venice?

Killer SWAT teams, massive explosions, stun grenades and close-quarter helicopter attacks ensure a happy ending.

"A fast read with lots of plot twists, great new characters, very funny situations and Mick and Jim are as devious and clueless as ever. I laughed out loud loads of times."

"No let up in the pace as Mick and Jim cope with murderous agents from the CIA, KGB and MI7, so secret even MI5 and MI6 don't know about it.

Great final paragraph."

During a devastating night on the town, Mick and Jim befriend a killer wolf, called Twinkle.

At the It's Alright He Won't Bite Urban Wolf Sanctuary, they learn how quickly volunteers' groins can disappear, and how best to stir your tea with an artificial insemination pipette.

They are conned by the world's worst photographer, into dubious paparazzi assignments. Events quickly become life-threatening and they flee, with Twinkle, to Glencoe to work on a slasher movie for LA's Hemoglobin Productions.

They come up against a Sicilian assassin called Heidi, an Erich Von Stroheim look-a-like, a sex-mad, soft-porn writer who has trouble with her support stockings, American Civil War cannons, the lure of the Copper Sporran's tea cakes and the unbelievable power of Twinkle's bladder.

Naturally, all is resolved to everyone's satisfaction on the desolate tundra around Archangel.

Mick is on a mission to Hollywood intent on saving Jim's soul and any other bits of him that might be useful around the office.

Horrible things happen. Like not finding out if Pamela Anderson screen-tested for Hannibal Lecter.

Fascinating information includes the fact that there are pubs in Ireland and Bulgarian hit men in Beverley Hills.

What is the secret of the teak-finished iVone and how do people cope with power-boating through seven miles of raw sewage? Why is Marlon Brando happy to serve soup, and JK Rowling so keen on setting peoples' feet in concrete?

If you like geraniums, Florence Nightingale’s spittoon and explosions that shift the San Andreas Fault by six feet - this is the book for you.

"Mick and Jim up north. Just as mad as ever with fantastic new characters and lots of plot twists. I laughed a lot, although once or twice it got a bit scary. Totally unexpected ending!"

"Lovely, incompetent Wayne is brought in to control Jim’s demonic possession. I’ll avoid spoilers and just say that the plot moves at a fantastic pace with surprises every few pages. Packed full of brilliantly witty lines and, of course, as ever, it’s very funny!

"Lots of funny situations and dialogue along with danger, explosions and quirky characters. Plus, an unexpected, delightful and rather tear-jerking end."

"Another stonker from Stan Arnold! A madcap rollercoaster of a ride with Mick and Jim. A great read - thoroughly recommended."

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Mick and Jim are on a shoot, when they discover a dead body in a packing case. They are interviewed by Scotland Yard's most repulsive rozzer, DCI Cragg, who tells them they are prime suspects. However, he offers them a way out, providing they act as his 'eyes, ears and nostrils' in a mysterious euro-case.

They end up vaguely tracking down un-specified criminality in Geneva, Amsterdam, Hull, the Greek island of Santorini, and a fairy tale castle in Germany. They are directed by a stream of weird emails from Cragg, written in the style of Sherlock Holmes, the 1940's private eye, Philip Marlowe, and William Wordsworth.

Communication isn't helped by Jim's inability to use his new smartphone. When sending urgent messages, he's often treated to videos showing how remove a bull's testicles or get chip fat off a chandelier.

Still, the adventure involves getting hit by 100 gallons of water a second, dealing with kebab-stained military secrets, in-cell explosions, playing poker for bits of concrete, being stuck on a bus with four anally incontinent goats, and enduring the lust of Lozania, the Songstress of Santorini, all while being tracked by Otto, the bowler-hatted assassin. 

The final set up involves Mick and Jim's ex-wives, an Otto look-a-like, a helicopter rescue and a charabanc full of SAS-trained cops toting Heckler & Koch submachine guns. In the end, Mick and Jim are left pondering how much of their ordeal was due to their innate incompetence and how much was just one giant confidence trick.

"Mick and Jim roam Europe in a desperate attempt to avoid being prosecuted for murder. DCI Cragg returns from Vampire Midwives to ensure that, at every stage, Mick and Jim sink deeper into the mire. A very enjoyable, fast read with lots of laugh-out-loud moments."