The House of Skirl: The Master of the Fallen Chairs - Hardcover

'He came on the shortest day of the year between the storms that carried the sea twenty miles inland and the great snow of that winter. But before his arrival there was an equally mysterious disappearance...'
The first in a trilogy, THE MASTER OF THE FALLEN CHAIRS sees thirteen-year-old orphan Kim living with his elusive guardian, surly tutor and various servants in a grand but dilapidated old house called Skirl. When one of the servant girls goes missing, a dark cloud descends on the house. The arrival of a stranger in the dead of night plunges everything further into mystery, and introduces a bit of magic to the mix too...

Henry Porter is the author of Lies Damned Lies (1984), an expose of British journalism, and four published adult novels: Remembrance Day (1999) A Spy's Life (2001), Empire State (2003) and Brandenburg (2005), which won the Ian Fleming Dagger Award for best thriller. In all, the books have sold to 13 territories.

He studied art in Italy and then History of Art in Britain; he was then a magazine editor and newspaper executive for many years. Today he works as the London editor of the American magazine Vanity Fair, a job which entails fixing stories in the Middle East and Europe. He also writes political commentary for the Guardian and Observer newspapers. He is currently working on a documentary on civil liberties, commissioned by Channel Four, after a unique email debate with the Prime Minister in the Spring of 2006. He is married with two children.

Orchard Press will publish The Master of the Fallen Chairs in Autumn 2007, with advanced reading copies mailed early in the year. A unique visual author-look will be established for Porter from the outset - which will help brand the extensive marketing and publicity campaign, including a haunted house launch party. Further books are planned for 2008 and 2009.