https://youtu.be/lCgicPdsxxg?si=b5EEZj6m0QyKrWdx
https://youtu.be/KxaZeGGYji4?si=DnmKeteHdkyN8vyL
Tommy Kennedy IV writes, promotes, and lives for chaos and creativity. His life runs on resilience, risk, and the refusal to stay down.
Born in Warrington, raised through institutions, he broke out and hit London head-on. He swapped concrete estates for city streets, and that choice lit the fuse for everything that followed.
He grafted twelve years on building sites, laying bricks on the British Library. Years later, his own books landed on its shelves. He built it. Now he fills it.
Tommy ran bars in Thailand, threw raves that shook the walls, and ran a promotions company in Notting Hill that kept bands alive for two decades. He also lost it all—bankruptcy, homelessness, prison time abroad. But he never stopped writing. He never stopped chasing the music.
Ten books later, his stories bleed with lived truth. Nightmare in Jamaica takes you inside Thai and Jamaican prisons, where he played reggae in a jailhouse band. His Ossie Clark biography shows the eye of a researcher who digs deep. His new novel The Devil Went Down to Doah keeps his fire burning, second in the El Peculiar series.
Tommy lived the Northern Soul nights at Wigan Casino, sweated through punk basements, and raved till sunrise. He crossed paths with Howard Marks, mystics, hustlers, and outcasts who bent his journey in wild directions. In the 2000s, he clawed redemption back on Portobello Road—music, community, creativity keeping him upright.
Now he sharpens his craft at Birkbeck Uni and Chelsea Theatre. Mandasue Heller calls his work “gripping.” Chris Salewicz calls it “a life lived on the dub side.” His kids, Sophie and Tommy Jr., keep him grounded while his words keep flying.
Tommy Kennedy IV doesn’t just write stories. He lives them, bleeds them, and throws them on the page raw.
eBooks Made Easy: Straight Up
Think eBooks sound complicated? They’re not. They’re just books on a screen. Same stories, lighter load.
Why bother?
No weight – one device, hundreds of books.
Easy eyes – make the text huge, bright, whatever you want.
Bed-ready – read in the dark, no lamp.
No queues – download in seconds.
No bookmarks – it remembers your page.
How to start
Use what you’ve already got—phone, tablet, laptop, Kindle.
Grab a free app—Kindle, Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo.
Pick a book—buy, borrow, or download free.
Tap. Swipe. Read.
Keep your paperbacks if you love them. Just try one eBook. See how quick it hooks you.
Blog: Crime. Drugs. Broken People. No Way Out.
Every Friday, a new story lands. Fast. Dirty. Under 1,000 words.
No polished heroes. No clean escapes. Just sharp cuts of fiction that taste like real life.
If you’ve read Nightmare in Jamaica or Notting Hill Ponces, you know the deal: the streets chew you up, the system spits you out, and not everyone makes it back.
One story. Every Friday.
52 in a year.
Always free.
The first one’s up—raw, jagged, no mercy.
👉 Hit the Blog. Read it. Share it if it bangs. Once you’re inside, don’t expect a way out.
https://youtu.be/lCgicPdsxxg?si=b5EEZj6m0QyKrWdx
https://youtu.be/KxaZeGGYji4?si=DnmKeteHdkyN8vyL
Tommy Kennedy IV writes, promotes, and lives for chaos and creativity. His life runs on resilience, risk, and the refusal to stay down.
Born in Warrington, raised through institutions, he broke out and hit London head-on. He swapped concrete estates for city streets, and that choice lit the fuse for everything that followed.
He grafted twelve years on...
Books
View AllNightmare in Jamaica
Tommy Kennedy IV’s extraordinary life began against the backdrop of the northern town of Warrington. In this honest autobiography, Tommy describes a chaotic childhood where home is variously in a caravan, a convent and care homes. His parents are childlike and irresponsible, and his life is unpredictable and unstable. Without any parental...
Notting Hill Ponces (Justommy Book 2)
Tommy Kennedy IV’s final autobiography enters the millennium years with energy, pace and sincerity. Immediately, we are swept into the heart of London’s Notting Hill and into the hypnotic centre of its vibrant music scene. Tommy’s management of the bands in his care is in equal measure affectionate, creative and dedicated. Characters such as Big...
Ossie Clark
Ossie Clark came from a modest, diligent working-class family, an ordinary boy who went on to do extraordinary things. He was born in Liverpool and raised in the industrial Lancashire town of Warrington, famous for its factories and the birthplace of Lewis Carroll. The author never knew Ossie, but they attended the same technical school,...
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Steve has a long history on the scene, having played and...
Blog
We were in the prison band together, “The Bloom of Light.”
He is now a dub poet. He always said he was innocent, but the likelihood of him ever getting out is minimal.
General Penitentiary Kingston Jamaica 2002
#DennisLobban
#PeterTosh
#DeathRow
#LifeImprisonment
#TheBloomOfLight
#DubPoet
#Innocence
#Prisons
#Jamaica
Nightmare in Jamaica
By Tommy Kennedy IV
Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to thank Thomas Rees and Anna Carrington for their vision for this book, and Jay Hirano for the inspiration he gave me to actually write anything at all.
I am grateful to Janice Stretton for typing this (turning ramblings into sense) and to Emilie Harper in the early stages.
A huge thank you to my family across the UK and...
Flash Fiction Friday: The Stripper
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." – William Blake
My name is Oscar, and I’m an alcoholic.
The Happy Ending became my life – a strip club in Soho where rock bands played between dancers. The crack, the chaos, the endless bottles in the 90s – it slipped through my fingers like wine rolling down a hooker’s lips. Addiction stole everything.
It started with my twin sister’s death. I reached for the bottle to numb the pain, but that only led to...