Patrick Neate

Ever since his dad died in a shock accident, thirteen-year-old Gabe’s world has been turned upside-down and back to front. Literally: Gabe has discovered the ability to tell stories which take him into the past, or imagine an impossible version of the present or future that seems as real as real. Gabe has no clue what is going on. But the answers may lie with his mysterious uncle Jesse, an online game called Small Town Hero which seems to mirror Gabe’s own life, a long-lost grandmother, and the very fabric of time and the universe.

An inspiring mission to rescue young people from drugs and violence with music At a time when interest in Brazilian culture has reached an all-time high, and the stories of one person's ability to improve the lives of others has captured so many hearts, this unique book takes readers to the frontlines of a battle raging over control of the nation's poorest areas. Culture Is Our Weapon tells the story of Grupo Cultural AfroReggae, a Rio-based organization employing music and an appreciation for black culture to inspire residents of the favelas, or shantytowns, to resist the drugs that are ruining their neighborhoods. This is an inspiring look at an artistic explosion and the best and worst of Brazilian society.

'He looks like a Brit, this guy. Full of good intentions and bad ideas.'Straddling two continents and two centuries, Patrick Neate's Jerusalem is a sweeping and hilarious epic of English misadventures abroad and at home. It features a self-serving MP lost and alone in an African dictatorship; a young, ultra-hip entrepreneur looking for something (or someone) new to exploit and an English veteran of a colonial war trying to save England from itself. With a host of other brilliant and brilliantly drawn characters, this is the funniest and most moving story of Englishness as it never was, isn't now and, hopefully, will never be.

Written by Whitbread Prize-winning author Patrick Neate.

***Now a film starring Riz Ahmed, Billie Piper, James Floyd, Cush Jumbo, Roshan Seth and Antonio Aakeel***Meet Tommy Akhtar, Ugandan Asian cricket fan, devoted son, and not very successful private investigator with offices over his brother Gundappa's mini-cab firm in deepest West London. He's just woken up from his hangover (combing the parting on his tongue) when his next case comes through the door. It looks like just another investigation when hooker Melody comes into his office asking him to find her co-worker, Natasha, last seen meeting new client at a bar in Shepherd's Market. But as the search for Natasha intensifies, Tommy's world becomes increasingly sinister. He is drawn into a murder investigation, the criminal underworld, the world of fundamentalist religion and maybe even terrorist activities. Neate brilliantly explores the oddball underbelly and wierd cultural mix of London - The City of Tiny Lights - today and questions just what it really means to be British now. . .

Presents a story of young people's lives in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, which highlights issues of violence, drug culture, and family. This book is co-authored by a prize-winning fiction and non-fiction writer.

Pinballing around the major cities of the world, from where it all began in the projects of Brooklyn and the Bronx to the excessive madness of Tokyo, from the random violence of Johannesburg, to the shanty towns of Rio, Whitbread Award-winning writer Patrick Neate explores the way how, through hip hop, the potent symbolism of black America has been acquired, used and subsumed by cultures on every continent to create a uniquely different form of globalism. A stunning musical journey and cultural odyssey, "Where You're At" is the story of how hip hop conquered the globe and nobody noticed.

Master storyteller Patrick Neate has written a funny, provocative and daring tale of London high- and low-life set among the capital's twirtysomethings. Featuring performance poetry; murder; Trafalgar Square's only fried-chicken induced battle; hat selling; bank robbery for the middle classes, love (and other social ailments); as well as pigeons - lots of crazed, angry thinking pigeons - The London Pigeon Wars is both a comic fable for our times and an exciting bird's eye view of life (and death) in the city.

Spanning three continents and two centuries, Twelve Bar Blues is an epic tale of fate, family, friendship and jazz. At its heart is Lick Holden, a young jazz musician, who sets New Orleans on fire with his cornet at the beginning of the last century. But Lick's passion is to find his lost step-sister and that's a journey that leads him to a place he can call 'home'. Meanwhile, at the other end of the century, we find Sylvia, an English prostitute, and Jim, a young drifter. They're in search of Sylvia's past, lost somewhere in the mists of the Louisiana bayou. Patrick Neate has written a story that straddles time and space, love and friendship, roots and pilgrimage and everything between. Poignant and hilarious, it will hook you - like a favourite tune - till the end.

Zambawi, a banana republic in sub-Saharan Africa, is on the verge of revolution. President Adini, dictator and eunuch, clings to power whilst his soldiers switch sides so often they don't know which uniform to wear. All in all, Zambawi is not the ideal location for student teacher Jim Tulloh to indulge in a spot of character building. Yet with the help of Musa, the local witchdoctor, some flatulent weed and headmaster, PK, Jim's days look set to be mellow in the extreme; until that is Jim is kidnapped from his bush school by the rebel Black Boot Gang. But it is when the Gangers invoke the spirit of Zambawi's Great Chief Tuloko that Jim's fate takes a really unexpected turn . . .