How to Steal a Piano and Other Stories

by John Hughes

How to Steal a Piano and other stories is a set of intriguing tales of our time – some dark and challenging, others light and comical.

The title story tells of a young piano salesman in Harrods who comes across a Bechstein grand in storage that appears to have been forgotten about. Would anyone miss it? There’s only one way to find out. Grasshopper and Unlucky for Some narrate the trials and tribulations of single women and online dating. It should be so straightforward, but even something as simple as meeting up with the correct man can be problematic. Pirates invade a usually quiet Derbyshire town in Matlock Meg and the Riber Hoard, and in Runner a trio of yobs get the shock of their lives when they try to avoid paying the bill at Mr Ping’s Chinese restaurant. Zulu the police dog will entertain telling his own story in Woof Justiss, and octogenarian Dotty extends her vocabulary when she researches the history of the c-word in Sevenoaks library.

Beneath the savoury and unsavoury characters and the twists and turns of their stories flow some thought provoking themes. Status based on ill-gotten gains, the self-destructiveness of road rage, lifelong barriers between fathers and sons, the therapeutic nature of a good limerick, and the convoluted sex life of the clergy.

Author news

How to Steal a Piano is now available - thank you, Troubador, for making it a pleasurable and seemless experience. This is a collection of 13 short stories on a wide range of subjects from the title story, based loosely on my experience as a piano salesman in Harrods, to online dating via a nasty case of road rage, a talking police dog and a lovable rogue (from a distance) called Halitosis Henry.

It's early days but I've had some lovely feedback already plus a number of questions about where fact ends and fiction begins. Naturally, I couldn't possibly comment!

This is my second published work of fiction. my first was Spitfire Spies, a World War II spy thriller published in 2016, and I have a second novel, Follow My Leader coming soon. This one imagines an elderly German refugee popping up in Reigate in 1951 claiming to be ... wait and see!

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About the Author

John Hughes

John Hughes was born in Sutton Coldfield, in the English Midlands, studied music at Royal Holloway College and has lived in Surrey for most of his adult life. He has earned a living in a variety of ways - selling pianos in Harrods, playing keyboards in a tribute band, editing a magazine, recruiting IT professionals, as a restaurant reviewer, and, most recently, managing in the NHS. He has written half dozen non-fiction books and two novels. How to Steal a Piano and Other Stories - a set of thirteen short stories - is his first publication with Matador.