Welcome to Thursday and today’s featured book is ‘The Judas Inheritance.’ Regular readers of the Symi Dream blog will already know something about this book, but there us some background to it that you may not be aware of. It started with a look in the desk drawer for inspiration…

Looking around to see what I had available here that could be used in a story I opened my desk drawer and saw a coin. My grandfather found this coin when he was in Palestine during the Second World War, where he was Naval Chaplain with responsibility for parts of North Africa and the Middle East. The coin dates from around 2,000 years ago and shows the Athenian Owl and a head in prolife. It could be from as early as 400 B.C.

Ancient coin, Palestine, Greek coins traveling there and back, silver pieces… Connections were made and, as often happens, a great big ‘What if?’ presented itself. What if the 30 pieces of silver used by Judas to betray Christ found their way along trade routes to Symi, bringing with them a curse of betrayal?

And that’s how the story started.

As anyone who has read my ‘Jason and the Sargonauts’ will know, I am rather fond of using local ‘clues’, tying them into a story to bring an air of possibility to the proceedings. Here there were several clues ready and waiting: Symi has been occupied by the Romans, Venetians, the Knights of St John, the Ottomans, Italians, Germans, British and finally Greeks. All, apart from Greece, have risen to fail. Why? What if each downturn in fortune happened at the same time these cursed coins were found, greedily used and brought to life again? When would the last time have been? Around 1912 when the Italian occupation, over fishing of sponges, World Wars and increases in taxes led to a mass migration from the island dropping the population from an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 to just a few hundred.

Just around the corner from my house is a square with a kafeneion opened in 1909, when the island was at the height of its prosperity and just before the great decline. What if the owner was able to build that new kafeneion because he had come into the possession of the cursed coins?

There is also an up to date tie-in which I felt was needed and poignant. In recent years, due to the economic downturn in the country, the suicide rate in Greece has increased. There has a curse on the country; the curse of bad government you might say. What if that curse was actually the curse of the Judas coins? I wondered, how would 30 pieces of cursed silver affect everyday folk? And the simple answer was suicide, the way they had affected Judas. This suggested to me that the coins were cursed even before Judas came into possession of them. (On this score, see the end of the book for a final twist that didn’t make it to the film.)

I could go on, but I know you have other things to do. As I write, the film version of ‘The Judas Inheritance’, titled by me as ‘The Judas Curse’ is still in post-production. From what I have seen of the rough edit it looks great. As happens in films, other people were involved in the project and a lot of the book story was changed to the extent that what I feel are the main elements of the story are missing – the modern day tie in, the clues, the history of the island, the progress of the curse and even, to a certain extent, the coins! But that’s how things go and I am sure – I hope – we will all see something in film form based on my novel at some point in the future.

“Brilliant storyline. It hooked me from the first page and I didn’t put it down until I finished and then only reluctantly. It had everything the more traditional thriller should; mystery, intrigue, heart stopping moments, even the odd tear at the sadness of it all.” Amazon review

You can order copies of ‘The Judas Inheritance’ here.

The photos are from the filming of ‘The Judas Cures’ and all are by Neil Gosling © all rights reserved

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I was writing ‘Jason and the Sargonauts’ before I moved to Symi and it is a story that had a long writing process, but was finally finished on Symi, up at the old house at Ag Triada.

The story was simple; it’s all here in myth: Jason goes to find the Golden Fleece and takes with him a bunch of heroes. Simple. The thing is to add in a ‘what if?’ and really get the ball rolling. What if Jason was a holiday rep in the present day (2003) and what if he worked for Sargo Holidays (Sensational And Relaxing Getaways Overseas), and what if Sargo only catered for the elderly, and what if… And so on.

Now then, years and years ago I was working on an idea for a story that was a bit of a cross between ‘The 39 steps’ and ‘Tales of the City’ if you can imagine such a crossbreed. It was all to do with smuggling codes and a drag queen defeating the rise of fascism in Amsterdam in 1995. Understandably, I put it away in a bottom draw for a long time. But the code idea stayed with me and, to be exact, a musical code. What if musical notes could be interpreted as letters? What could a piece of music say?

Anyway, it all got thrown in together and came out as: a young holiday rep working on Symi has a group of odd pensioners, including his grandmother, to look after during a very difficult week. Grandmother brings an heirloom which starts the group off on a treasure hunt for the Golden Fleece. But where and what is it? The answer is found by following a piece of musical code written a hundred or more years before.

And so we head off into a slightly camp romp (lots of theatre gags and references) as the group travel across Symi to search for The Golden Fleece. There are many hidden, and some more obvious, references to the original Myth: Castor and Pollux become Cassie and Polly, two old ‘theatricals’, for example, the grandmother’s name is an anagram of Hera, and so on. So, for fans of the original myth there’s plenty to figure out, for fans of code breaking there’s a riddle to solve, for fans of Symi there is some accurate history (the story takes place in the present, the late 19th century and during World War II, and a lot of that research came from Hugo), and there are also a few local characters popping up under different names.

So, if you, or someone you now, likes comedy, Greek myths, adventure stories, treasure hunts and reading, then Jason and the Sargonauts would go well wrapped up and under a Christmas tree. (As long as it was eventually opened and read.)

You can order copies of Jason and the Sargonauts here.

“This is Dan Brown meets Whitehall Farce with a bit of education about Symi’s history thrown in for good measure. Set on the Greek island of Symi, it’s a fast paced whodunnit with lots of laughs and loads of page turning moments. Yes, it was hard to put down.”

“This books deserves a large audience and stands up there with the best novels about contemporary Greece.” Amazon review

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Carry on up the Kali Strata is what you might call part two of ‘Symi 85600’ as it follows on to cover the next couple of years of living on Symi, so it is actually a carry-on from ‘85600’ and hence the name. Well, it’s not rocket science is it?

Back in the days when we had the Symi Visitor newspaper to look forward to each month, I would write a column for them. These articles sometimes also appeared on the Symi Dream blog, but they were often constrained by the number of words allowed in the paper; column inches I think they call them in the biz. After the success of ‘Symi 85600’, people were asking if there was going to be another book. So, it seemed a simple process to collect the articles together, the newspaper having since finished operating, and put them in a compilation with some other pieces of writing that I wanted to get ‘out there.’ And that’s how ‘Cary On’ came about.

We also decided to add in some of Neil’s photos for illustrations (some pictured here) and we had Gill Bennett, who used to live on Symi, design the cover. The thing was, it was still just a collection of articles and had no real through-line. ‘Symi 85600’ had taken us on a journey, the first five years living here, and so that had a kind of structure, but ‘Carry on’ didn’t.

I started thinking about the questions we often get asked here, ‘What’s it like in the winter?’ for example. (And, as I write this – last Friday – there’s a thunderstorm raging, I can’t see Nimos or even the sea through the rain, much of which is coming in under the doors and through the windows, some of which is coming in through the kitchen ceiling, the roof over Neil’s office (for the first time) and through the still not fixed bedroom window. All towels are down, the electricity keeps flickering and there’s a junction box nearby that keeps sparking. We’re expecting a full on power cut any time now and I have to get to Yialos to buy boat tickets. Yeah, like that’s gunna happen.) That’s what it’s like in the winter madam!

Another oft asked question is, ‘What is it about Symi that made you stay?’ And that’s what I thought should be the structure (loosely speaking) of ‘Carry on up the Kali Strata’, ‘What is it about Symi…?’ So, through articles, anecdotes, a couple of short stories and the photos, the answer is found in this book.

Originally published in landscape format (it can still be found at Lulu.com in this format) it was republished via Amazon a couple of years ago in portrait format, and, like my other books, is also available on Kindle. Same words, same images just a different layout.

You can order a copy of Carry On up the Kali Strata here.

“Thoroughly enjoyed this insight into a small Greek island life. For all of you who’re familiar with Greece in any way and love its warmth and can’t QUITE put your finger on what exactly it IS about Greece, James is here to help you answer that.” Amazon review

“This is a good laugh out loud honest account of life on a small island.” Amazon review

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I used to work for a Trust, many years ago, and, after about eleven years of day-to-day and climbing up the ladder to end up with my own office, staff team, area, and million pound projects to run, decided one day that I didn’t want to be doing that any more. I wanted to be doing something else.

After some deliberation and a month in the Greek islands, including two weeks in Symi while off work sick – which always makes me think of people throwing up, ‘can’t come in I’m sick –eughch’, why are people not off work ‘ill’, or ‘unwell’? I don’t think I have actually been sick since having one too many pints of Shepherd Neame (Britain’s oldest brewery apparently) back in 1990 or something – we returned to England and I resigned.

Well, that was it; instantly felt better and so excited that there I was cutting off all ties with an income, what with a large house and mortgage, credit cards and such like. For about two weeks after making the monumental decision I hardly slept, I’d sit up all night and write and, during that time I came up with a thing called ‘You Wish!’

Now then, if you like your novels to be sophisticated and sensitive, well put together and deep, if you like great sentence construction and intelligent thought, perfect grammar and a calm, adult storyline, then you don’t want to buy this book. It poured out of its own volition over two weeks of sleeplessness and just kind of fell onto the page. Once it was out I decided to leave it for a while and come back to it later to rewrite it. That’s what I did, only I didn’t. I left it more or less as it was because it kinds of works as it is, and it is what it is and actually, it still makes me laugh if I reread it now. (I’ve even left some of the typos in for you, how generous is that.)

What’s it about? It’s about five friends who get their wish come true for one day and then find they have to suffer three days of the consequences; it’s about the gay scene in Brighton, dead parents (and others) coming back to life, it’s about having X-ray eyes and being the biggest, butchest, most macho gym-fit stud the ladies could wish for, it’s about magic gone wrong, nudity, and mayhem. Someone once said, ‘Think Tom Sharpe on loony juice with a camp gay twist and you’re getting close.’

Yes, it’s rude, crude and very often nude, has some typos, and it’s not for snobs, but you don’t have to be gay, mad, young, all of the above to like it. A local Brighton magazine reviewed it as ‘Perfect poolside reading’ so that kind of suggests it’s light and pointless, which is 100% accurate. But, if you know someone who likes Nick Revel and his ‘The night of the toxic ostrich’, or even Tom Sharpe (may I say, while bowing low), then the chances are they are going to like this piece of madness and slightly camp mayhem. But it is really only for adults. Or only for adults who haven’t quite grown up yet.

You can get a copy of You Wish! here.

“Mr Collins took me into a world packed with original characters in very unusual situations, with hilarious consequences. I have read many humorous books in the style of Tom Sharpe, not all of them good. In my view, this book adds much to the genre and I recommend it to anyone with a lively imagination and a good sense of humour.” Amazon review.

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For the next week, Saturday to Saturday, I am running a series of posts about my books, what’s behind them, what they are about and where you can buy copies. It’s that present buying time of year again and I can get these posts ready in advance so I can take a week off from blogging and let them run themselves. Today, the first ‘living on Symi’ book, Symi 85600.

You may already have a copy of this book, but if not, you might like to consider ordering one for a friend or family member.

This is my first book of anecdotes from Symi and covers our first five years of moving to, and living on, the island. It is made up of emails, and letters, blog posts and some articles, plus a few extras that were written especially for the publication, and it also includes a ‘How to’ guide. ‘How to move to a Greek island or other place in the sun.’

The How To section was written following requests from several people and it’s really a handy list of things to check, remember and organise. Nowadays I expect a lot of the information needs double checking as I wrote this back in early 2004, but there are still useful thoughts and ideas in there for anyone thinking of making the move.

What’s also interesting about Symi 85600 is that it was written with a newcomer’s eye. I remember, in the first winter we lived here, meeting Faith Warn who wrote ‘The Bitter Sea’ a book about the sponge diving industry of (mainly) Kalymnos. She, a Radio 4 presenter at the time and journalist, told me that a diary in the first year was invaluable as you wrote what you saw before you became too self-aware. In other words, it’s all still fresh and new. After a while you think ‘I’d love to write that, but I can’t as it would upset him/her so best leave it alone…’ And so on. Mind you, these days I don’t care so much about that though I do stay away from naming names.

There’s a look at the ex-pats in Symi 85600 too, in the How To part, in a section based on my early observations of ex-pat’s generally. I notice I gave them titles, stereotypes if you like: The chairperson, The Keen drinker, The Montague, The Capulet, The moaner and so on – I expect I could add a few more ‘types’ to that list now. The rest of the book remains, I hope, an honest and sometimes funny account of moving to, and living on, a small Greek island.

And if you ever wondered what the title meant and were too afraid to ask, it’s (part of) the post code.

You can get a copy of Symi 85600 here.

Symi 85600 book review: “A must read if you’ve ever thought of moving away from it all and starting afresh. James writes accurately about the trials and tribulations of living on a small, beautiful Greek island with humour in such a way that not only can you not help but fall in love with the island AND James but makes you wish you could do it too despite knowing the pitfalls that go with it.” Amazon review.

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