James Peak writes fiction with Duncan Crowe. Together they produced the Scoundrels Trilogy between 2017 and 2022. Usually, a book with 'scoundrel' in the title is a breathless romantic fiction full of lust, bodice-heaving, chaps in tight jodphurs and trysts in the English countryside. Our books are not those books (although they do technically contain all of those things - just not in the way you'd expect.) Our books are about manslaughter, blackmail, deadly casinos, Turkish bakers, unsavoury gymnasiums, horrible incidents in the Wimbledon tennis club changing rooms, Chinese sex-assassins, Stasi spies, showdowns with giant bulls, fights, fixes, chess games gone wrong, horrific accidents involving rickety firearms, ill-thought-out games of strategy which end in tears, braggadocio, violence, rare orchids, the male ego, birds of prey, panda hunting and sordid goings-on from which nobody emerges with any credit. So, you can't say you weren't warned. The Scoundrels books - all three of them - are unapologetically risque spy-thrillers, starring the disreputable Major Victor Cornwall and Major Arthur St. John Trevelyan, who are approaching their 100th birthdays and keen to relate the unwholesome stories of their youth. Their competitive and combative autobiographies centre around the little known Scoundrels Club of Piccadilly, the members of which are often charged with fixing the sort of diplomatic and espionage crises that can't go through normal channels. The books have been championed by wonderful authors and artists like Terry Gilliam, Christopher Fowler and Bob Deis. They've been described many times by journalists, bloggers and real people we don't know as "the funniest thing I've ever read". Some folk have gone further: "genius" (The Chap Magazine), "like Flashman on acid" (Men's Adventure Library) and "immensely satisfying" (The Daily Telegraph).