Ben Coulter

What do you do when you fall for your best friend's girl? Your best friend who just happens to be an international film star and a girl who just happens to be a drug-crazed supermodel? Can an introverted London author really handle the heat of L.A. and all its wicked ways? Find out in A SoCal Story.Ben Coulter's fourth novel sees him climb out from the grungy pool of the urban crime thriller and aspire to the lofty heights of contemporary literary fiction, while continuing to employ the same grit, addictive mystery and relentless tension he has become known for. Tony Lowe is an internationally published author, achieving the aspiration of so many. But Tony isn't one of the many, Tony is one of the few. The 1 in 4 few who suffer the torment of a noxious mind. His collapsing mental health will not allow him to appreciate his literary achievement and his self-doubt threatens to turn to self-sabotage.When he receives a call from his university room-mate, Marley George, asking him to come to L.A. to adapt his novel to film, he doesn't hesitate in saying yes. Marley is now a fully fledged Hollywood heart-throb, garnering international fame and vast wealth. Soothed by warm winter sunshine and laid-back Malibu living, Tony settles into the L.A. lifestyle, calming his dependency on prescription drugs and limiting time spent with poisonous memories. He feels his frosty mental health begin to thaw in the warm SoCal sun.But he soon finds himself swapping one addiction for another as he spends more time with Abi Hart, Marley's supermodel partner. The celebrity couple's relationship is on the rocks and Tony falls for her New York charms like a struggling actress for the Hollywood casting couch. She welcomes him into her world without limitation. A world of A-list celebrity and class A narcotics. He quickly discovers that the reality of life in LaLa Land is profoundly different from the one portrayed on the silver screen. Racked with feelings of guilt for betraying his friend, and an immoral fear of losing his movie deal, he struggles to resist Abi and all the libertine lust she dispenses.Southern California is the land where fantasy can come true, but just as soon be slung onto Skid Row, discarded, broken and bruised with a hundred dollar a day habit. Will Tony live the dream, or suffer the nightmare? One thing is sure, just because it sparkles, doesn't mean it shines.

Billy Stone is an ex-Marine and boxing champ living a lavish criminal lifestyle whilst on the run in Thailand. But, when a botched hijacking on the Burmese border leaves three men dead, Billy must make fresh alliances with a feared mafia boss, whilst trying to keep hold of a newfound love and himself out of one of the world's toughest prisons. In this follow up to the Amazon number 1 bestseller Poisoned Saints, Billy runs headfirst into trouble whilst on a marijuana run inside the treacherous Burmese border. Back in Thailand, Billy is forced to make a new deal with a murderous crime lord whilst keeping Islamic terrorists and ruthless Russian gangsters at bay.As love unsuspectingly enters his life in the form of all American girl next door, Mel, Billy struggles to keep his gang of criminal misfits in line; Che, his old Stambro friend and struggling drug addict, Nate, a former US Marine and Compton psycho and Orly, the laid-back, weed smoking Frenchman.Can Billy keep up his affluent lifestyle whilst cultivating his newfound romance? Can Che resist the hedonistic delights of South East Asia? In the contrasting land of Buddhism and the death penalty lessons will be learnt. Billy must stay one step ahead of his past whilst out smarting the present, or be forced to Keep on Running.

******Amazon Number 1 Bestseller ****** WARNING: This novel depicts graphic adult situations including violence, sex and drug usage, with explicit dialogue from the start The aim is to portray to the reader an authentic criminal lifestyle through the art of fiction, whilst using the regretful foundation of experience.******Charlie is a cocaine distributor living in a run-down London overspill, but when he discovers his top dealer shot to death, Charlie must find the killer and a way out, whilst losing the tail of Detective Jack Cloud in order to flee the country with his lover and a clear conscience. ****** When ambitious yet troubled Drug Dealer Charlie Paccadillo discovers one of his top cocaine distributors mysteriously shot to death, his world is thrown into disarray. Alice, an unassuming single mother with connections to a rival crew of dealers, soon becomes his only release from the angst, as he searches for answers and battles to control his crumbling criminal empire. As DI Jack Cloud investigates the murder in the gritty London overspill town of Stambro, Charlie quickly becomes his chief suspect. Looking to solve his first shooting, career driven Jack will stop at nothing to get the job doneCan Charlie find a way out or is he in too deep to turn back? Will Jack find the real killer? The clock is ticking and the pressures on, every decision counts in a world where life is cheap and reputation is king. The street is always watching and no one, detective nor gangster, can afford to lose.