Mister Kreasey's Demon

The complete novel is available on
https://www.amazon.com/Mister-Kreaseys-Demon-Storm-Clouds-ebook/dp/B0052F7KF6/

Having once served as a classroom teacher in a peaceful village school and then experiencing the contrast with a post as a college teacher in an Inner London college where a much thicker skin was needed to adjust to the needs of a much tougher breed of students, I drew on this experience to inform the fiction, Mister Kreasey's Demon; the demon partly the product of a classroom-broken paranoid mind and partly a real, sharp, metal threat to Kreasey's 'well-being', courtesy of his disenchanted students, who didn't want to chew on, still less digest, the metaphysical poets.

I can say that my research was done truly, if not painfully, on the job; survival teaching me a lesson but giving me an empathy with those from deprived backgrounds whose anger against society, though difficult to cope with, was still deserving of my spending 2 years exploring the motivations of London's street-toughened students.

Tormented by his students there is one exception, Amy, who tries to be Matt's 'passport' to her teacher-bashing classmates .

The book cover was designed to suggest that the trust which Kreasey places in Amy and her growing tenderness of feeling for him ( in the foreground on the steps) is threatened by the gathering of those amongst his students ( distorted faces at top of book cover ), Kreasey's 'demon', who want to finish the job of breaking him.

Reviews

• "As a former London teacher, Raymond Nickford has nailed the teacher's fear of the 'Lord of the Flies' pack mentality perfectly. And what a cliffhanger!" - Marsha Moore - author of The Hating Game.

• "Raymond Nickford does anxiety and paranoia so chillingly well." - Jane Alexander - author of "Walker"

• "Beautifully observed characters, atmospheric and intriguing." - Barbara Erskine - Sunday Times bestselling author of "The Darkest Hour"