Back in the eighties, when Pet Shop Boys were crooning about 'Opportunities' and Thatcher was on the throne, a bloke working for the Brewing Association was moaning to a mate that there were no new novels that were based in the current, historical context. The mate was one Jonathan Gash, who told him (probably just to shut him up) to go do it himself.
He did, and to cut a long story short, Mike Ripley started writing, and the first was Just Another Angel, and it's route to becoming published was not too dissimilar to Angel 'pulling a Middleditch'.
The influences were wide and varied. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the memories and experience of working in the brewing industry were translated into stories, along with some colourful characters who you could assume are merely cariacatures or stereotypes, but are probably closer to true life than you may think. Angel himself was based on at least two acquaintances in Ripley's life. His name was also based on two people; a BBC Cameraman, and Fitzroy Maclean, the author of Eastern Approaches.
It could well be that the original series was supposed to be straight and serious, but it ended up as a comedy detective-but-not-an-official-detective series. But the emphasis was definitely on funny.
Angel Touch, the second in the series, won The Last Laugh award for comedy fiction, as did Angels In Arms, the fourth. Angel Hunt, the third, was awarded the Angel award for fiction, presented in the Angel Hotel. Really. The first few books quickly disappeared into obscurity in the UK, but became popular in some surprising places, even touching cult status with books changing hands for somewhat higher than the cover price.
Two more followed, Angel City and Angel Confidential, but the humour of these was somewhat darker than the previous four and didn't really attain massive popularity, for varying reasons. Mostly because they weren't appreciated.
That Angel Look was supposed to, definitely be, the very last in the series, but you can't put a good character down. Bootlegged Angel, perhaps the only one in the series to give a real idea of what the Brewing Industry and Customs and Excise were like, was released a couple of years later.
Ripley had upped sticks from London, moved to East Anglia, and become an archaeologist. Maybe there was more beer there.
He had also made friends with a Bill Carmichael, who was the step father of a certain Pierce Brosnan. Having found the (nearly) real James Bond giving him new ideas for his (nearly) wannabe James Bond, and using experiences from being on the set of The World Is Not Enough, Lights, Camera, Angel was written and published.
Readers may wonder whether he had any friends left, after lampooning the brewing industry, the media and fashion industry, Customs and Excise (dodgy), and now the Absolutely Fabulous world of PR, but he hadn't finished. Angel Underground should have done for him, by turning on his fellow archaeologists(i). But I guess that all was forgiven, as four more followed; Angel On The Inside, Angel In The House, Angels Share and Angels Unaware. Mike suffered a stroke, aged 50, in 2003, which paralysed his left side and he recuperated by bashing out a novel on an ancient typewriter. He wrote the only non-fiction book in his CV about his experience: Surviving A Stroke, but some of the experiences are probably translated to Christopher Cleves Angel in House and Share, showing that Mike can even take the mickey out of himself.
Intermingled with the Angel novels, there are three other humourous, non-Angel novels penned by Ripley: Double Take, The Legend of Hereward the Wake and Boudica and the Last Roman.
In the 20 years of Angel, Mike has been a scriptwriter on Lovejoy and BBC2's Murder Most Famous, and reviewed crime fiction for the Daily Telegraph and the Birmingham Post. Mike currently writes obituary columns in the Guardian for dead crime writers (he looks for crime writers looking a bit peaky), works as a volunteer for the Blood Pressure Association, sits on the government's Stroke Strategy Steering Group, and is a tutor at Cambridge University for crime and creative fiction. He has also worked with Maxim Jakubowski, producing the Fresh Blood series, promoting new crime writers. He writes a monthly article on the SHOTS magazine website called Getting Away With Murder, keeping you up to date with all that's relevant and irreverent in crime fiction. Surprising he finds the time really.
He may be old enough to know better, but, despite the fact that Angels Unaware could well be the last in the Angel series, we probably have not had the last from Ripley.
