Martin Cathcart Froden

Martin Cathcart Froden is originally from Sweden, but after five years of living in Glasgow he describes himself as ‘pretty much as Glaswegian as they come’. His stories have been shortlisted for awards including the Bridport Prize and the Bristol Short Story Prize; his story The Underwater Cathedral won the 2013 BBC Opening Lines competition and has been broadcast on Radio 4; and he is the winner of the 2015 Dundee International Book Prize. His debut novel Devil take the Hindmost is published in 2016 by Freight Books.

Devil Take the Hindmost is a gripping historical noir set during the amphetamine-fuelled craze for velodrome racing which took London by storm in the late 1920s. Into this world stumbles Paul, a bewildered Scottish farmboy running away from home. Powerfully built with a fierce passion for cycling, he is taken under the wing of Silas, a local loan shark, and from there enters a world he is ill-equipped to survive. As the races get harder, the bets get larger, and the terrifying Mr Morton starts to take an interest in Paul’s career.

Devil Take the Hindmost is a thrilling ride through an historical London that is rarely visited and was described by author and Dundee International Book Prize judge Denise Mina as ‘a Graham Greene-esque noir with suspense and peril.’