Don't Say I Didn't Warn You

There is a new writer rising in the noir ranks. H P Tinker.

It's not often I get excited by a writer after spending a few years reading stacks of review books and almost a year now reading short story submissions, as many as five to ten a day. For someone's writing to stand out in the crowd, something very special, and very wicked, has to be taking place.


Dark, funny and with a natural voice that eases readers into the work before completely messing with their heads, Tinker is part of the new breed of writers who couldn't write formula fiction if bound, gagged and made to listen to Yanni for weeks on end.

Tinker, who apparently is not much of a sleeper, has ongoing work with 3A.M. Magazine that showcases a twisted wit and a social awareness rare in someone so seemingly jaded.

Featured in the anthology Dreams Never End, put out by Tindal StreetPress and edited by Nicholas Royle, Tinker has earned more than passing praise from the Independent:

"An assiduous champion of the short story, Nicholas Royle introduces works by three young English practitioners of contemporary noir. The best is HP Tinker, whose infusions of surrealism and pop-culture references have apparently already earned him comparisons to Thomas Pynchon, though his three stories here reminded me more of Paul Auster's New York Stories. His stock detectives flounder in an incomprehensible universe overloaded with information but short on meaning, and are as baffled as the reader by the improbable suicides and motiveless crimes which they come across. Unusual, arresting, smart and very funny, his stories easily repay Royle's faith in the form, though personally I look forward to him writing a novel."

And from the Timesonline:

"These are ten stories by three youngish authors. Andrew Newsham shows promise, although his American-set pieces are tonally a little awkward. Mick Scully, who is building up a grimy universe around the Little Moscow, a hangout for Birmingham toughs, impresses, as does H. P. Tinker, especially with the hilarious deadpan surrealism of his The Shattered Window."

If every time you pick up a book or read a short story, it seems as though you've read it before, start Tinkering. Or I'll hunt you down and waggle my finger at you menacingly.