At the same time, a Captain Salter comes to the village looking for a spy. They call him Robber and Meg nurses him back to health. He tells them he robbed a coach and has silver hidden that he will split with them if they hide him. Not many venture outside and Meg and her husband’s mother Nana are sitting by the fire when a thump is heard on the door. The winter of 1708-9 with its extreme cold and heavy snows was known as The Great Frost. Oh, and if you want to do a cool magic trick on him, he always carries the 10 of spades in his wallet. He's also a much better guitarist and singer these days, and plays washboard in the legendary skiffle group, Black Kes. He likes warm beer, running, musical instruments with strings, his two teenagers and feeding people. He spent his twenties travelling the world, first as a guitar teacher and then teaching English, in countries as diverse as Hungary, Spain and Papua New Guinea, before returning to the flat lands of East Yorkshire. When a wounded highwayman bangs on their door in the night, and they take him in, they don’t realise just how much worse it will get.'ĭue for release in July 2022, Flat City Cars is a present day gangland thriller set in a Hull taxi office.Īfter getting a degree in philosophy, the only talent Chris had was, 'playing the guitar - and not very well'. 'Meg and Nana know the cold will get worse – because everything always does. His latest novel, The Great Frost, is a historical romance set in Chris's home village of Cherry Burton during the bitter cold of 1709. '.the gutting of fish, waves as big a s buses and the freezing cold water of The North Sea in your wellies.' His first book, Beast, set on The North Hull Estate, deals with a young boxer who loses his dad to cancer and a huge wolf that stalks the banks of Barmston Drain.Ī North Sea Tale, published by Flat City Press, is a murder mystery set on a North Sea trawler at the height of the cod wars in 1975. Chris Speck is an English teacher, writer and musician from East Yorkshire in the UK.

The Great Frost by Chris Speck