Lies and Tells of Compost Mckenzie

ADHD rent boys, obsessive-compulsive spies, accidental conjurers and trickster shamans. Albion’s army are everywhere. Their aim is to disrupt the ‘secret police’ who have taken over grass-roots protest movements. To join them, you must have a superpower masquerading as a mental illness.

Failed actor and out-of-work musician Compost Mckenzie describes his descent into mental instability whilst working as a deep-cover operative for British Intelligence. He may or may not be a reliable source, due to his on-off friendship with a psychic spy obsessed with politics. Bex Riley is the charismatic leader of a private army of anarchist journalists who also dabble in ceremonial magick and mind-control. She has gone missing. Now Mckenzie is convinced he is being followed by the same forces that she claimed to be pursued by. It leads him into a world of covert undercover monitoring of anarchist activists, sex workers, drug dealers and occult investigators.

The Lies and Tells of Compost Mckenzie explores themes of anarchy, queerness and addiction from two very different perspectives. The characters are united only in the fact that they are all individuals; a crew of messed-up, awkward iconoclasts who will not be reduced to stereotype.