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has been previously won by John Updike, AA Gill, Ben Okri, Melvyn Bragg, Tom Wolfe, and Norman Mailer. However, the book was widely recognised by the judges as taking a deliberate tilt at the award (Frank
Brinkley of the Literary Review quoted from the book, remarking: "Some of the entries were so over the top as to be almost outrageous.") The Times' Diary reported that: "Scoundrels (was) rejected by the judges as it was too obviously written to win. 'We cheated,' Peak admits. 'We're like a couple of literary Lance Armstrongs.'" The 2018 Bad Sex in Fiction Award went to James Frey for his novel 'Katarina', with Crowe and Peak honoured to collect the award from the pop star Kim Wilde on Frey's behalf.
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Congo, manslaughter on the Orient
Express and romance at the Stasi Christmas Party. Volume Two in November was made one of The Spectator Magazine's Books of the Year: "The highlight in fiction was Scoundrels: The Hunt For Hansclapp... Duncan Crowe and James Peak once again pull off the balancing act achieved by only the very best spoofs - making it real enough to be believable, ridiculous enough to be funny." A review in Book Decoder described it as "quirkily funny... hilarious and absurd." One reviewer, Sarah Douglas, wanted "to have a disastrous marriage with this book," describing it as "great fun and perfectly done."
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sullied. As their lives had been so horribly intertwined since their schooldays, the Majors eventually agreed to write a chapter each, in turn of a joint autobiography. Scoundrels is epistolary - structured as a series of letters between the Majors, within which are chapters from their shared history. These letters contain a great number of astonishing adventures including panda hunting with the last
Chinese Emperor, the storming of the Nazi Castle Kung Hammer, and the heist of a Picasso painting.
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get together to play squash, some go down the pub, others tinker with motorbikes, but a lot of that time they are thinking 'how can I make these idiots laugh?'" and Crowe explains: " getting a laugh from someone is always gratifying – but even more so when you respect their sense of humour. It's a kind of validation. You make another bloke laugh who is your peer and their laughter is a recognition of truth. It's good for the soul."
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central character interesting or even believable. The core genius of
Scoundrels is that its authors have avoided that mistake. Right from page one, you love Major Victor Cornwall and Major Arthur St John Trevelyan, despite - or rather because of- the fact that they're grade one, nailed-on, ocean-going shits... It's the book's exquisite over-the-topness that keeps you coming back for more."
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In late
November 2018, The Hunt For Hansclapp was nominated for the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award, for "author(s) who ... produced an outstandingly bad scene of sexual description in an otherwise good novel." Crowe and Peak were reportedly delighted to be considered for this award, which
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Scoundrels 'Volume Two: The Hunt For
Hansclapp' was published in the UK on September 6 2018. It continues the narrative of Volume One, covering the Major's adventures during the years 1952–to 1974. The Majors continue to bicker and boast in their letters to each other as they recall kidnapping in the
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Scoundrels Volume One was formally distributed to UK bookshops on June 29, 2017, quickly selling out the first edition. A second edition with minor textual changes was printed in July 2017. A second printing of the second edition was made available in
December 2017, and a third printing of the second
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reported that "Scoundrels captures the essence of this humor as therapy. It celebrates a blokey, showboating spirit, outrageous boastfulness and sheer idiocy as elements that are vital to male happiness." It quoted Peak as saying: "I'd say humorous at the heart of most male friendships. Some blokes
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is the memoirs of the disreputable, antagonistic, and unreconstructed Majors Victor
Cornwall and St. John Trevelyan. The book relies on a complex conceit: that both Cornwall and Trevelyan were unhappy at the prospect of the other beginning work on an autobiography for fear of their reputation being
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is a series of comic adventure novels first published in 2017 by Major Victor
Cornwall and Major Arthur St. John Trevelyan (the pseudonyms of the authors Duncan Crowe and James Peak, who also feature as the book's unwilling editors). Print copies are published by Black Door Press Ltd., Fitzrovia,
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Magazine published a full-page review of
Scoundrels, by Mark Mason: "The trouble with most spoof biographies is that they don't concentrate enough on the 'biography' aspect. So desperate are they to get you laughing that they throw a million gags in your face, completely forgetting to make the
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A third novel entitled 'Volume Three: Her Majesty's Pleasure' completes the Majors' joint autobiography with, according to Crowe, "a shuddering climax. A right royal rumble at the very heart of the British Establishment." Volume Three was published on December 2, 2021.
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After publication, Crowe and Peak intend to create a "universe of Scoundrels content", that further explores the club's legacy of solving appalling diplomatic crises that the Crown and Whitehall refuse to touch, from the seventeenth century onwards.
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will be published in September 2018. He also revealed that the authors have planned Cornwall and Trevelyan's life stories as "at least a trilogy" of novels, each to be more surprising, sordid, and hilarious than the last.
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During October to December 2018, Crowe and Peak made appearances at several branches of Waterstones and Foyles in London and the South East of England to sign copies of the books.
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The book has received positive reviews for its humor, lightness of touch, imaginative storylines, and the active relationship between Majors Cornwall and Trevelyan. The
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London, and distributed by Turnaround Ltd., Wood Green, London. Ebooks are published by Farrago Books, an imprint of Prelude Books, Richmond, London.
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on Talk Radio Europe about the challenges of writing a novel with a partner in which he revealed that the experience had proved "so enervating" that
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of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be
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The film and television rights to the Scoundrels novels were acquired by the London film company Rocket Science in October 2019.
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called it "immensely satisfying... a panda-hunting, Everest-climbing, Nazi-castle- storming adventure." Mark Time, the author of
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The Scoundrels novels, Duncan Crowe and James Peak are represented by Charlie Campbell at Greyhound Literary, of London.
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edition in February 2018. A third edition with further minor textual changes was distributed in November 2018.
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Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing
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Revolving around the infamous gentlemen's club of Piccadilly,
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In July 2017, Peak gave a radio interview on Hannah Murray's
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