Rick Brindle

  We Are Cold Steel , the second novel in the Cold Steel series, is now free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Get your free copy now. A day after their historic concert on the Caribbean island of St Clements, heavy metal band Cold Steel are heroes. Now, all they have to do is stay out of trouble and enjoy a well-earned holiday until they start work on their next album. Except that the owner of the recording studio hates all things Cold Steel. Except that Cold Steel’s record company has blackmailed the studio into accepting them. Except that not all reporters are as friendly as band manager Johnny Faslane’s girlfriend, Rachel Shaw. With a tight deadline, Cold Steel have to get the next album out before their tour starts. They can’t afford any delays, and Johnny has his work cut out keeping the band in line. Feral former soldiers, reporters with an agenda, cake-obsessed studio execs and international criminals all work their way into the mix as the band hurtle from one imp...

  Unless you’re in charge, probably not you. And back in my day, weapons-wise at least, it really wasn’t that complicated. You either got the SA80 Or the Light Support weapon (LSW). And if you were a knob, you moaned about it, and if you weren’t you just got on with it. So, in basics, you learned how to use both, but it was your Drill Corporal who decided which one you used, and you damn well did as you were told. And once you got posted to a squadron, it would be either your section commander or detachment commander, depending if you were posted to field or air defence, who decided which of the above you used. Gimpy? Well in my day, if you were field, one of these bad boys might become your personal weapon. Rapier squadrons had one per crew, but it was a team weapon as opposed to individual, in the ‘very rare’ event that the Rapier kit stopped working. Boys probably got bigger toys now, but way back when, section battle drills demanded that you fire a 66mm at the enemy position be...

  The  MkIII Ford Cortina. This bad boy was the ultimate seventies plush-mobile. And don’t get me wrong, the Mk4 and 5 Cortinas were more modern looking, albeit a bit boxy, and you know what it’s like, the newer model always tends to make the older version look, well, old. And you know what, I couldn’t tell you a thing about the mark’s performance or reliability, I was only 11 when the seventies ended, so for me it was all about the look and the image. I loved the look of this beast, and yeah, if I could, I’d get me a hold of one and drop an all-electric engine into it, turning it into a reborn eco-wagon of green-powered salvation. Sister Alex   Cold Steel on the Rocks   We Are Cold Steel   Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard   It's Not For Everyone

  Cold Steel on the Rocks , my debut novel and the first book in the Cold Steel trilogy, is now free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Get your free copy now. When the pirate, Blackbeard, buried his treasure, he could never have imagined that it would fall to the heavy metal band, Cold Steel, to come looking for it. Cold Steel, high-octane British rockers who came close to legendary status, until the release of their fourth album, when their excesses send them spiralling into terminal decline. Struggling small-time band manager Johnny Faslane, in the right place at the right time, lands the dream job of managing Cold Steel, and then has the seemingly impossible mission of turning the band around. Cold Steel’s singer, Maxwell Diabolo, claims to have a treasure map that he thinks will lead him to Blackbeard’s lost riches. With the band bent on a terrifying path of self-destruction, Johnny wonders if they will even complete the tour, much less get to the Caribbean to embark ...

  My new book is finished to first draft, working title Charlie Schitzen, An American President. It's going for first edit soon, and I'm hoping to publish early 2026. Cold Steel on the Rocks We Are Cold Steel Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard It's Not For Everyone Sister Alex

  Sister Alex , my post-apocalyptic novel about a trans survivor, is free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Get your free copy now! Berkshire, England, and it’s no longer the promised land. Ever since a species-wide illness wiped out nearly every human being, the home counties have become a gender-based battlefield. The women stick together as a single, cohesive community, but only as long as you’re a woman. And it’s the same for the men, although they haven’t quite got the same group thing going, choosing instead to range as lone threats, taking what they want. Sometimes they team up and run in pairs, but only as long as you’re a man. They’re separate tribes, and they hate each other on sight. Pick your gender, pick your side. And then there’s Alex, born as a man, identifies as a woman, and thanks to a stash of scavenged hormones, she’s stuck somewhere between the two, lost in the middle and hated by them all. But she’s survived, and if what’s left of the world won’t lea...

RAF aircraft in the seventies  looked gorgeous. And almost, but not quite as important as that, they were all badass. For sure, they were all in service in the seventies, but they were designed way back in the fifties. The Avro Vulcan entered service in 1956 and was retired in 1984. In about 2014 I saw the last flying Vulcan at an air show, and the roar of its engines was something to behold. The noise was like a physical thing hitting you. The Black Buck raids during the Falklands War immortalised it in British folklore. An absolute flying legend. The Handley Page Victor was an absolute beast and definitely looked like it belonged in Thunderbirds. It had the biggest payload of all of the V Force bombers, but it really excelled as a tanker. It entered service in 1958 and was on the books until 1993. I was lucky enough to see them on the pan at Akrotiri during my short Op Granby tour. The English Electric Lightning was the RAF’s nude-shot, centrefold pin-up for decades. It served in...