Bad News

If Richard Linklater's movie "Boyhood" is a window to an alternate take on modern life, Francis Skelton's "Bad News" throws the corpse of a tabloid journalist, pocket full of fifties in a gimp suit, through that window. What starts as a little current affairs section on his website, late in 2003, launches Skelton on a righteous crusade, a tirade of passion and laughter, that mutates into his second novel, "Bad News". And "Bad News" is News like no other, with headlines like: “Britain says NO to Sky Marshals"-"Media Machine Gun"-"Detention Lite"-"Cat Killer". Readers describe Skelton's first novel "Untitled" as "Blistering", "Wickedly funny and achingly sad", "Passion, energy, wit, commitment and insight" (Irvine Welsh). And "Bad News" offers the same emotional velocity. As Skelton puts it, "If I can give even one person insight into experiences that help them critically assess and improve their own life, take a chance to be happy, I will have done what I set out to do." That person could be you.