The Lock Files

Good evening, reader. Or good morning. Or good whatever time of day you’ve found yourself tumbling down this particular rabbit hole.

My name is Edward Locke. I’m a novelist, occasional academic, and a man who would prefer to keep both feet firmly on the ground, even as the world insists on floating off into absurdity. This Substack is my attempt to document the ongoing struggle between reason and nonsense — a battle I seem to be losing with increasing frequency.

You may already be familiar with my work — specifically, the Damion Stranger novels (written under my more flamboyant alias, Lucien Drake). Damion is a paranormal detective. He doesn’t believe in the supernatural, of course, which is unfortunate, since it seems to believe in him.

But those are someone else’s adventures. Today, we turn to Charles Blake.

Charles is, as his friend Samir once put it, “a rationalist with a capital R.” He worships at the sacred altar of logic, despises nonsense, and yet — through no fault of his own, mind you — keeps finding himself embroiled in events that refuse to fit into neat, empirical boxes.

Samir, or Sam, is, in his own words, “a Scottish, Tunisian, whisky infused, marmalade delight,” and Chales’s best friend. Sam, a verbal volcano who erupts daily, is the tech wizard’s wizard.

You’ll also meet Anastasia Beaumont (her friends call her Tassy), a woman with enough charm to make even my most rational creations question their sanity. If Tassy were to describe herself in her own words, I’d need a much longer post. So, we’ll make do with Charles’s description: She’s “a fucking posh pixie with a pout.” And Sam’s: she’s “so posh she poos pearls.”

And then there’s Nell. Nell and Tassy are best friends. They met at school at age 7. Don’t be deceived by Nell’s posh exterior. She’s sharp-eyed, sharper-tongued, fiercely loyal, with a knack for spotting nonsense and no patience for emotional evasion. She also allowed her corset of propriety to slip when smoking a joint with “darling Finny” at university.

What follows in this newsletter is not just fiction. It’s not exactly non-fiction, either.

Think of it as a memoir from the edge of reason or a good reason to write a memoir when you’re living on the edge. Or as Charles might say:

“Never let the tide of bollocks flow over the seawall of rationality.”

Together, they’ll take you through a story where the lines between history, memory, and madness blur in the most inconvenient of ways.

I’ll be sharing a new chapter here regularly — along with the occasional aside, musing, or Lockean commentary on why the world seems hell-bent on disproving itself.

If you like your mysteries with a sharp tongue, your romance with a cynical twist, and your reality served slightly off-kilter, then you’re in the right place.

Welcome aboard.

— Edward Locke

(Reluctant Author | Rationalist | Purveyor of Absurdities)