Death of an Old Git

The villagers of Stoney Cross were bustling about like hyperactive ants. In gardens, houses, and the village hall, figures flitted to and fro making last- minute preparations for their 'Great Event'. After four months of furious debate and power-struggling organisation, the first Stoney Cross Arts Festival was to commence on Saturday 5th September and last for two whole days.

Posters were everywhere, promoting this rare rural treat, but a last-minute suggestion to enlist the aid of a local radio broadcaster to advertise, then review their efforts, added an extra frisson of excitement.

The delight of some of those involved, however, soon turned to dismay when the broadcaster, Marcus Willoughby, actually moved into a house in Stoney Cross the day before the Festival, turning out to be someone from their past: someone whom they had hoped never to clap eyes on again, and who had greeted them with recogntion in his eyes.

To those he had never met before, he proved to be a smarmy, spiteful bigot who proceeded to take great delight in verbally shredding their artistic efforts.

When he was found dead at his desk, only a week after moving into his new home, his demise actually having been broadcast during his pre-recorded programme on Radio Carsfold, there were no crocodile tears shed. He had finally been 'choked off' in mid-flow.

His arrival in the village had obviously caused a few guilty hearts to beat faster, and precipitated a few hasty confessions of dark deeds thought buried in the past.

Into this welter of emotions was dispatched DI Harry Falconer, his trusty (?) acting detective sergeant, 'Davey' Carmichael, riding shotgun, as they entered 'bandit' country once more.

Reunited in Death is a sequel to the quirky Crime in the Community, which is already available from Smashwords.

Reunited in Death was a quarter finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for 2011 and received the following comments in a review by Publisher's Weekly:

'An unlikely cast of endearingly eccentric characters distinguish this offbeat mystery set in Pitkirtly, an appropriately quirky town on the Scottish coast....Memorable characters, delightful word pictures -- an assistant librarian "looked like a piece of chewed string" -- and understated humor highlight a novel with real promise.'

Walking into Murder is a cozy mystery with a strong setting and distinctive characters: wonderfully appealing amateur sleuth Laura Morland, a Professor of Gender Studies; a country manor full of British eccentrics, and the Cotswolds, site of Laura’s planned walking tour through England’s quaintest villages and most verdant countryside.

Still smarting from her husband’s unexpected (though not entirely unwelcome) defection, Laura accepts an invitation to teach a seminar on gender in London. First, she decides to test her new independence by walking the Cotswold Way. The walk soon takes unexpected turns. Lost in thick fog, Laura is accosted by a man who may or may not be a murderer but forces her to pose as his wife lest someone be killed. Escorted at gunpoint to Torrington Manor by an aristocratic Englishman, she is confronted by a formidable grande dame, an outrageously rude child and a houseful of other eccentrics. When she discovers a dead body that keeps changing its identity in one of the bedrooms, Laura realizes that someone in the Manor is a killer. But who? Everyone in this bizarre household seems to have multiple identities and multiple motivations, which means that any of them could be the villain.

Laura’s curiosity is almost as uncontrollable as her over-curly hair, and she tackles the mystery with abandon. The plot gets ever more tangled, the list of suspects longer, and Laura’s verbal battles with her abductor – to whom she is undeniably attracted – more pointed. She finds allies as well: Catherine, a free-spirited American runaway whose involvement leads to a breath-taking confrontation on the moors, Nigel, a teen-ager with multiple talents like mask-making and sculpture, and (possibly) a former theatrical dresser. A more dubious occasional ally is Laura’s alternately charming and irritating, and always baffling, would-be husband.

As the efforts of the villains to silence her become more frantic, Laura’s strategies to escape them become more ingenious. With her usual disregard for the escalating danger, she vows to outwit them all. And she does. In a final dramatic scene with an unexpected twist, she zeroes in on the murderer, or it might be more accurate to say the murderer zeroes in on her.

In this cosy mystery, Scottish distillery heiress Fiona Sutherland returns to the bucolic village of her childhood to assume her role in the family business only to discover her true expertise is jousting with enigmatic Chief Inspector Nick Dawson when her grandmother’s friend falsely confesses to the murder of the local greenkeeper two days before the start of the British Open.

In the quiet village of Steynham St Michael there is an anonymous letter-writer at large, jabbing and stabbing at the past's Achilles' heels of many of the upright citizens living there.

After one resident is driven to extreme measures to escape exposure, another is driven to murder.

In the village cards club that meets once a week, tongues begin to wag, not only about the identities of the murderer and the anonymous letter writer, but also about who exactly has received a letter.

There are also changes afoot at Market Darley Police Headquarters, as the national economy dictates that it accepts the straitened circumstsncres planned for it, and complies with recommendations for change.

And before any of this even happens, DI Harry Falconer drifts up from unconsciousness to find himself in complete darkness and barely able to move, while the only thing he can hear is that of someone moaning in pain.

Can anyone ever really change? Christopher and Amaryllis ask themselves this question when a young man comes to the door of their holiday caravan one wet evening.

The attempt to answer it takes them and their friends on a dangerous journey from a Pitkirtly ice-cream shop to a knitting club and then to a cattery before they reach a dangerous conclusion in an old railway yard.

A Pitkirtly mystery

Who would believe choral singing could be such a deadly past-time!

Richard and Virginia Grainger, new members of the Standchester Choral Society, are looking forward to their first public performance with the choir in a production of Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet.

As the performance opens, however, tragedy strikes in the form of a very public death!

Whilst coping with the repercussions of this, Virginia also has to tussle with the personal problems of her next-door neighbour, Caroline.

As plans to re-schedule the concert are being made, another death occurs, and a tenuous but suspicious link between the deaths and her neighbour's husband surfaces.

Virginia begins to realise that her own life may be in danger, and starts to feel the tangled web of deceit and malice tighten around her.

A village detective series with a delightful slice of humor.

Shepford Stacey is an unassuming little village, its greatest asset being its small but excellent Church of England Primary School. This delightfully old-fashioned establishment of only two classes, one of infants, the other of juniors, has been run by the same pair of ladies for decades.

It is in the year that the headmistress, Audrey Finch-Matthews, is to retire, that the smooth running of this long-established educational establishment is interrupted by murder.

When Detective Inspector Harry Falconer and Detective Sergeant Davey Carmichael of the Market Darley Police arrive to investigate, they discover a host of motives, both past and present, and grudges that reach right back through the years.

As the Easter weekend grinds inexorably on its way, Death stalks the village again, and it suddenly becomes imperative that the murderer is caught before there are more fatalities.

Falconer soon realises that this is not the work of an opportunistic psychopath passing through, but of someone within the small community itself, taking lives at will, and there is no indication that the slaughter will stop here.

This is the fourth book in the series 'The Falconer Files', the other three being 'Death of an Old Git', 'Choked Off; and 'Inkier than the Sword'.

A village detective series with a delightful slice of humor.

Jefferson Grammaticus and his business partners, Jocelyn and Jerome Freeman, had spent two years on the extensive renovation of a two hundred year old building, set in expansive grounds, with the River Darle as it's northern-most boundary.

The building work was now finished, the decoration and furnishings were in their appointed rooms, rich drapes adorned the windows, and French crystal chandeliers were being hung.

The opening weekend - which included a murder/mystery dinner (in fancy dress) - had been advertised, and bookings taken.

Then finally, after all the work and graft, the decisions, the purchases, the planning and last minute hitches, all was ready.

Grammaticus booked in his first guests with great optimism, believing that 'The Manse' had a sparkling future ahead of it.

He was soon to be disabused of this, however, when two people were killed and another lay gravely ill! And it had all happened on the night of the murder/mystery dinner, except that the bodies were actually dead!

Into this fearful and mistrustful mixture of guests and staff, D I Harry Falconer and D S Davey Carmichael arrive, to try to make sense of how the tragedies had occurred and who was responsible for them.