Heathcote Williams, the "radical poet, playwright, actor and polymathic English genius," died July 1, the Guardian reported. He was 75. Williams "was the author of many polemical poems, written over four decades in a unique documentary style. They included works about the devastation being wrought on the natural environment--Sacred Elephant, Whale Nation and Falling for a Dolphin--and Autogeddon, a grim and majestic attack on the car."
Williams wrote several successful stage plays and appeared in several films, often in cameo roles. He was also an accomplished painter and sculptor, as well as "an impressive conjuror and a member of the Magic Circle," the Guardian wrote, adding that he "retained his principled fury to the end. In 2016 he published Boris Johnson: The Blond Beast of Brexit--A Study in Depravity, an excoriating attack reprising the foreign secretary's lies, evasion and adultery, sold as a pamphlet from the London Review of Books bookshop. Another work, Royal Babylon, lambasted the Queen." Williams's last volume of poetry, American Porn, was about U.S. President Trump.
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British crime writer Helen Cadbury, whose debut novel To Catch a Rabbit was published in 2013 and was a joint winner of the Northern Crime Award, has died, the Bookseller reported. She was 52. Cadbury's second book in the series, Bones in the Nest, followed in July 2015, with one more volume and a poetry collection still to be published.
Susie Dunlop, publishing director at Allison & Busby, said: "We are all devastated at the tragic news of Helen's death.... We are so proud to publish her first two books in the Sean Denton series, and will be publishing the third in September this year, with a launch in York in Helen's memory."
Cadbury's agent, Laura Longrigg, said: "Helen was a superb writer, a natural communicator, an all-round amazing person whose death has left us bereft. We loved working with her and the publication of the third Sean Denton novel, a collection of poetry, and the promotion in her home town of York this September, will give us all the chance to celebrate and remember her."