BASTARD SQUAD bookcover illustration by ED209 in Southend on Sea

I had the pleasure to work on a fun project towards the end of 2023. The book, BASTARD SQUAD, is an homage to the late 70s Italian Poliziotteschi genre of hardboiled crime drama. After Spaghetti Westerns fell out of fashion, the same studios pivoted to making films in the Dirty Harry and Deathwish style. Conceptually, the book is a novelisation of an imaginary lost film, so we chose the cast from the best of the genre. That's Maurizio Merli as the lead with support from Tomas Millian. The antagonist would've been Henry Silva, with Barbara Bouchet, as the tragic love interest. This was a fantastic project, as I had never heard of this genre before. Though if you fancy checking any of the films out, do bear in mind these are very much products of their time!