In the British Isles, vampirism is strongly associated with the aristocracy

Having revealed and removed the mole in the Office of the Witchfinder General, Danesh is a hero – but also a target. The Warlock sends his most fearsome lieutenant to dispose of him. Danesh must work with Lady Coldwater and Gilroy to prepare for the inevitable showdown.

He’s pretty sure he can trust the Crow, but struggles to keep his secrets from his friends. Is his mother ready for the truth? Who else can he rely on? Will Sally Spender help him? What about Arthur Stonewall?

Meanwhile, someone or something is digging up graves in Cardiff and taking bones…

The Order of the British Vampire, will be published as an eBook and in paperback on 25th July 2025 – find out more HERE

The Office of the Witchfinder General: Protecting the public from the unnatural since 1645.

by Simon Kewin

The official crest of Her Majesty’s Office of the Witchfinder General Design: Alison Buck

The idea for the Office of the Witchfinder General books came to me after I’d completed a galaxy-spanning sci/fi trilogy that covered vast distances and huge periods of time – and I found I very much wanted to (a) write some more fantasy where I didn’t have to get the science right all the damned time and (b) come up with something that was grounded in our familiar world.

I’ve always loved fantasy books that depict the horrors and the wonders hiding just around the next corner or peering out at us from the shadows of the trees. Then I heard the (chilling) phrase “The Witchfinder General” somewhere and, at the same time, I was reading a fascinating (honestly) article on defunct positions in the British cabinet – specifically, the “Postmaster General”, a position that, incredibly, existed from the early 16th century up until 1969. And then I thought it might be fun to combine those two: have a Witchfinder General as an official British cabinet position, as well as this whole government department around them so they could work to protect the realm from supernatural threats.

Her/His Majesty’s Office of the Witchfinder General was born: a shadowy arm of the British government that these days is run quietly from No. 13 Downing Street (there’s a secret tunnel to No. 10 so the PM can talk to the Witchfinder General). The first book in the series, The Eye Collectors, was published in 2020, followed by The Seven Succubi (2022), Head Full Of Dark (2023) and now the fourth book: The Order of the British Vampire.

The lead character in all the books is Danesh Shahzan, a lowly Acolyte in the Office at the start. Danesh and his colleagues spend their days fighting all manner of supernatural threats, specifically in the Welsh Office in Cardiff, run by the implacable Campbell Percy Hardknott-Lewis KCB DL, Lord High Witchfinder of All Wales. I live just over the border from Wales in Herefordshire and it’s a part of the world where it’s often not clear which country you are actually in. Roads and paths cross between the two without it always being obvious. This was where I wanted to set my books: in them, the borders between the mundane world and the supernatural realm are, equally, fuzzy and indistinct. I think it’s fair to say that Elsewhen Press and I have also had a lot of fun blurring the lines between fiction and fact in the books too – for example, inventing and, indeed, actually reproducing a suppressed book that Danesh draws on in his investigations.

The Office is bitterly opposed to any and all magic use – a fact that, as we slowly learn, puts Danesh in a very difficult position as his family history slowly comes to light. Each book is a self-contained magical mystery, but there are also a couple of longer story arcs. A major one concerns a malevolent figure called The Warlock, whom Danesh crosses paths with again and again – for reasons that aren’t clear at first. It’s this plot line that is finally resolved in the new book. To find out whether Danesh – and, indeed, the entire Office – survives, you’ll have to read the series!

Links

https://simonkewin.co.uk/witchfinder/

https://elsewhen.press/index.php/catalogue/series/witchfinder-series/

Simon Kewin is a pseudonym used by an infinite number of monkeys who operate from a secret location deep in the English countryside. Every now and then they produce a manuscript that reads as a complete novel with a beginning, a middle and an end. Sometimes even in that order.

The Simon Kewin persona devised by the monkeys was born on the misty Isle of Man in the middle of the Irish Sea, at around the time The Beatles were twisting and shouting. He moved to the UK as a teenager, where he still resides. He is the author of over a hundred published short stories and poems, as well as a growing number of novels. In addition to fiction, he also writes computer software. The key thing, he finds, is not to get the two mixed up.

He has a first class honours degree in English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing (distinction). He’s married and has two daughters.