A fiend in need

It's this week. The second Dirk Lloyd book, A Fiend in Need, goes on sale on Thursday. In the first volume, which was picked as a Sunday Times book of the week, the Dark Lord of the Iron Tower of Despair, the Nameless One, the World Burner (etc, etc, you get the picture) was banished to our world in the body of a 13-year-old kid. That first book, Dark Lord: The Early Years, ended with a ritual that was supposed to return Dirk to his realm, but the ritual went wrong and sent his sort-of Goth girlfriend, Sooz, in his place.

So now Sooz is stranded in the Darklands, where the White Wizard Hasdruban (so good he's bad, if you see what I mean) has been subjugating the last of the Dark Lord's valiant (though evil) forces. It's up to Sooz to take Dirk's place and lead the resistance while Dirk and his friend Christopher try to find a way to get through from modern-day Earth to help her.

I reckon this book is the best thing Jamie has ever written. There isn't a single page that won't have you laughing out loud and gasping in amazement at his wacky imagination. It's one of those kids' books that appeal to the kid in all of us, so certainly for grown-ups too. And as a bonus it's filled with brilliantly mad pictures by Freya Hartas, daughter of Leo.

And, just to add to the unstoppable juggernaut that is the Dirk Lloyd bandwagon, NBC have commissioned mega-talented comedy writer Iain Hollands to pen the pilot for the Dirk TV show. Iain's first original drama, Beaver Falls, transmitted on E4 and it has already been recommissioned for a second season. Iain is also writing Kool Aid and Apocalypse Slough, two original projects for Working Title Television. (I was born in Slough so I know that one will work. No need to bring on the apocalypse there.)