Christopher Shevlin

This is a book about a slightly useless part-time Harrods sales assistant who inadvertently brings down the government.

That's the elevator pitch anyway, but there's so much more to it: an upper-class housewife who discovers that she is an excellent burglar, a low-speed car chase, a fight to the death on a very small balcony, a shadowy company taking over the government, a dashing detective/loss-adjustor who gradually changes his attitudes to women, an epic battle at the Ritz in which a relative of the Duke of Portland is thrown over an occasional table, a shop selling edible puns, a personal crisis in a life-drawing class, a beautiful beige-haired philosophy student, a murderer with a really comfortable balaclava, a missing one-eared cat...

All are packed into a book which quite literally several people say they like. Even I like it.

But don't take our word for it, read the first six chapters for yourself.

It is called either Cooking A Fish or The Scapegoat Farm. Let me know which you prefer, and tell me whether you are one of the people who like it or part of a new group who don't like it.

I finished writing this in late-January 2010 and am currently looking for an agent. I have sent samples to three agents so far – watch this space for news.

I ought to tell you that, even though it begins from the point of view of a dead person, it isn't one of those annoying books that are written from the point of view of a dead person. The dead person is only in three chapters. There are lots of other characters.

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written by Elizabeth Sheard, 07 March 2010

Hi Chris
Really enjoyed your first chapters, can I read the rest?
Love E

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Yes of course
written by Chris Shevlin, 08 March 2010

I'll email it to you.

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Lord
written by Jones, 16 March 2010

Hello Chris. The premise of your book sounds promising. It is a promising premise. But why, in England, do we call it an "elevator pitch" rather than a "lift pitch"? It offends me somewhat.

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You're right
written by Chris Shevlin, 16 March 2010

It offends me a bit too. The trouble is that 'pitch' isn't very English either. The only fully English alternative is 'summary of the story of a book or film short enough to tell a publisher or film executive during the course of a lift journey, such that they might feasibly want to buy your book or script'. By the time you've finished saying that they'd have got out of the lift, and so would you. Especially if you speak as slowly as I do.

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