Books

Imagine waking every morning, a stranger inside your head, telling you to kill people before bedtime.

Last thing at night, the bowling club president, Barnabus Reynolds, is busy cashing up, preparing to go home. Everyone else has gone. He believes he is alone; but is he?

At nine the next morning, the caretaker opens up to find Barnabus splayed out...

Please note: “The Evil Man” is a long story divided into two parts, One & Two. Readers should know all threads to the case will not be revealed in this book. This is Part One only.

Seventeen-year-old Harry Sparsholt is at boarding school in North Shropshire. Most nights at 2am he gets out of bed, and goes outside to sit alone in a quiet dark...

“The Evil Man” is a long story divided into two parts, One & Two. This is Part Two only. If you haven’t yet read Part One, readers are strongly advised to do so first. All threads of the entire case will be resolved in this book. There is no part three. To avoid spoilers we are repeating the blurb.

Harry Sparsholt is a seventeen-year-old...

Important Note for readers:

“The Final Door” is the largest case-story Inspector Walter Darriteau has ever been involved in. The full investigation runs to over 700 pages and has been split into Parts One and Two. The book promoted here is Part One only. Readers should know all plot threads will not be resolved during Part One. Here’s the blurb....

Important Note for readers:

“The Final Door” is the largest case-story Inspector Walter Darriteau has ever been involved in. The full investigation runs to well over 700 pages and has been split into Parts One and Two. The book promoted here is Part TWO only. For the greatest enjoyment, readers are advised to read “The Final Door Part One” before...

Towards the end of a busy day, Inspector Walter Darriteau returns to his workstation. There’s a neatly-written pink notelet on his desk. Please ring Mrs Susan Woodhams, and a local number. He picks up the phone and pokes in the digits. After three rings, a woman answers.

‘There’s something preying on my mind,’ she says, ‘and it has been for more...

Inspector Walter Darriteau’s mind insists on returning to an old case from years ago when he was a humble detective constable. That’s not such a surprise. It was one of the biggest cases he was ever involved in.

But his boss, Mrs West, wants him in the present, investigating a Chester secret society, work that Walter considers dull and boring....

There’s evil in all of us, even you. All it needs is the right circumstances to bring it to the fore.

Corley Crabb is almost thirty. He lives alone in a tiny flat and has few friends. He’s a trainee accountant working for a dull company. His mother is dead and he and his father hate each other with a passion and don’t communicate.

On a blazing...

A calculating killer, a laid back policeman, and a frantic phone call mark the beginning of the “Five Dead Rooks” mystery, Inspector Walter Darriteau’s seventh case, and unquestionably his most difficult to date.

Bilk Thomas runs a Chester city centre nightclub catering for the more mature drinker and dancer. Why not? They have the money and they...

There are not too many new cases on Inspector Walter Darriteau’s desk. Perhaps it’s inevitable he thinks of old cases and cold cases and sad cases and nutcases, and that always brings him back to the DC Suzy Wheater affair, and what an horrific business that was.

Lisa Greystone travels to the Greek islands. It’s her final stab at freedom prior to...

Soon to be eighteen, Rhiannon Reece lives with her grandparents. Her mother was killed when she was just one, and her father, unable to cope, fled to Australia, never to be seen or heard of again.

One morning, Rhiannon sets off for school, but she doesn’t arrive, and worse still, in the evening she doesn’t come home.

Her grandparents are...

In the outskirts of the ancient city of Chester, twenty-something Eleanor Wright lives in a run down caravan in an isolated spot down by the river. She does tricks for men, for cash, to fund a burgeoning drugs habit.

It’s early winter, late Friday night, and there’s a thunderstorm hitting the town. A handsome young man knocks on her door. He’s a...

Young women are being imported illegally.

A young man supporting ageing parents inexplicably vanishes.

The body of an Oriental woman is dumped outside the public swimming baths.

A magical moneymaking scheme is being promoted at a city centre hotel.

Four apparently unconnected events, but it can’t be long before these strands find their way onto...

The ancient city of Chester, Friday night, and the weekend starts here. High summer, skimpy fashions, short skirts, tight jeans, it’s a hot night, and the town’s relaxed.

It’s 11pm and the pubs are beginning to close. The band has just finished playing; packing their instruments away, but the night is young.

A young man enters the still crowded...

There have been three suspicious deaths in the ancient city of Chester, but are they accidents, suicide, or murder?

Inspector Walter Darriteau lives in the city, and he’s soon on the case.

“The Murder Diaries – Seven Times Over” is the first novel in a series of seven standalone books.

If you enjoy English crime stories, detailed characters,...

This Box Set features the first 4 Inspector Walter Darriteau cases:

The Murder Diaries – Seven Times Over

There is a killer on the loose in the ancient city of Chester, a random killer who strikes without any clear motive.

Inspector Walter Darriteau and Sergeant Karen Greenwood are on the case, determined to catch the killer before he or she...

Inspector Walter Darriteau returns in this four story eBook Box Set collection. It features four complete and unabridged eBooks combined into one. “The Legal & the Illicit”, “Five Dead Rooks”, “Old Cold Bones”, and “Falling”.

The Legal & the Illicit: is a sweeping novel following four generations of the Ridge family from the 1930s to the...

Meredith Hawkes is on the move again, to Woodbridge in Suffolk. After he’s found a bed for the night, he searches for a town-centre pub serving food, and goes inside. There’s a striking young woman propping up the bar, laptop, tablet, and newspaper spread out before her.

Hawkes buys a drink and orders food. The girl ignores him. A broad man...

In a small Hampshire town, teenager Adam Goodchild witnesses his mother’s brutal murder, shot dead by security police in the back garden of their cute cottage, an event that will one day return to haunt the government itself.

Adam goes on the run and discovers he isn’t alone, for there’s a whole underclass of malcontents out there with similar...

England in the near future - though you may not like what you see.

The Cazenoves and the Wilsons don’t get along, leastways the parents don’t – the teenage kids adore each other, most of the time, but when the oldest Wilson girl, Tracey, falls pregnant, sparks fly.

Donald Cazenove just happens to be Freddie Wilson’s boss, but Fred isn’t without...

This is a story for children and the young at heart (of any age!) It features lots of fab characters, beginning of course with the Bunny and the Bear, both of whom are desperately seeking good new homes.

Follow the story of the Bunny and the Bear, as they set out on their quest to find a suitable new place to live, and ultimately find true...

Gringo Greene is a philandering man and he doesn’t treat his women well, but it all comes back to haunt him.

Let me ask you a question.

When were you last in love? Was it good for you? Would you recommend it? And if you had the choice, would you do it again?

Gringo Greene has never been in love. That’s half his problem.

But when a young lady gives...

Johnny Vergette is repairing an old motorbike in the garage when his mother calls him into the house.

Grist Vergette, his grandfather, passed away a few weeks before, and Johnny’s inheritance has just arrived.
It’s a key. The key to Grist’s old garden shed down on the allotments.

Johnny goes outside where he meets Seri, the German neighbour’s...

“Down into the Darkness” is David Carter’s tenth book and something of a departure from his usual English murder mysteries (“The Murder Diaries – Seven Times Over” and “The Sound of Sirens”). It’s also a lot shorter than most of his books, running to around 140 pages.

One early reviewer described it as “intelligent humorous horror” – quite some...

David Carter’s charming new book “”Drift and Badger and the Search for Uncle Mo”” is out now. Drift is a red deer fawn, born unseasonably late, and will always struggle against his bigger, brasher brethren. His mother travelled deep into the forest to give birth as the herds moved on far to the north.

A tragic accident leaves Drift to fend for...