Crime Novels

See also:

Jack the Lady Killer (1999)
The Punjab in India. 1935. The sub-continent under the Raj. Fresh from his English boarding school, Jack Steele is a new recruit to the Indian Imperial Police and soon begins to acquire the attitudes of old India hands towards the people under their rule. Only a few months into his posting, Jack has to conduct a murder investigation when one of the British community at his Station, the sexually rapacious widow Milly Marchbanks, is found strangled. To Jack’s consternation, the only clue implicates a member of the club for the British. But which one? While Jack goes round and round in circles, his self-effacing Indian sergeant, Bulaki Ram, discreetly nudges him along the way he needs to go.

H. R. F. Keating is best known for his long series of Inspector Ghote mysteries set in India, but Jack, the Lady Killer is something completely different as well as completely unexpected. It is one of the rarest forms known to literature, a detective novel in verse. Inspired by Vikram Seth’s brilliantly successful revival of the verse novel in The Golden Gate, Keating develops his rhyme-crime in nearly 300 fourteen-line stanzas. During a writing career spanning forty years, Keating has won many honours, most notably the award of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 1996 for a lifetime’s achievement. Since 1985 he has been President of the Detection Club in succession to some of the greats of British crime fiction, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and Julian Symons.

The Bad Detective (1999)

For years Detective Sergeant Jack Stallworthy has taken advantage of the extra perks available to him. He’s put away the criminals, made the town safer. Why shouldn’t he accept the bonuses for his hard work?. His beloved and beautiful wife, Lily, dreams of retiring on Ko Samul, an island paradise, while Jack would be content to retire to a modest bungalow in Devon. That is, until Jack meets influential businessman Emslie Warnaby. Emslie offers Jack a deal he can hardly refuse: In exchange for just one file at police headquarters, Jack will get the deeds of ownership to the first-class Calm Seas Hotel in Ko Samul. But the incriminating file turns out to be very hard indeed to get, and as Jack tries to complete the transaction, Lily grows impatient about her dream, Jack falls deeper and deeper into crime, and soon there’s no turning back.

The Soft Detective (1997)

DCI Phil Benholme has the reputation for being a little soft – but only because he tries to see both sides of every story. And now he is faced with the murder of Professor Unwala, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1945. What does a “soft cop” do when his teenage son is also his prime suspect?

The Good Detective (1995)

The author of ‘The Rich Detective’ continues to examine problems facing detectives, in this case how to combine his essential goodness of character with the demands made on him to get a result.

The Rich Detective (1993)

Riches beyond the dreams of avarice are the last thing on Bill Sylvester’s mind when he returns to England after a holiday in Spain. A detective inspector in South Mercia, Sylvester is greeted by an urgent summons from the chief constable himself. Meanwhile, the lottery ticket he bought so casually while on vacation lies forgotten in his wallet. Sylvester is asked to tackle a highly delicate case. An anonymous letter – alleging murder – received by the chief identifies a wealthy antiques dealer as the perpetrator of a ruthless scam against defenseless old ladies. Sylvester is soon on his way to the opulent home of Charles Roanoke – and what he witnesses there convinces him that the allegations against the dealer should be taken seriously. Before long Sylvester finds he is alone in believing in Roanoke’s guilt. Then he learns that his lottery ticket has won him almost a million pounds. Suddenly master of his own destiny, he resigns from the force. But Sylvester has become obsessed with pursuing Roanoke to the bitter end. An end that proves far more bitter than he at first realizes. For justice can sometimes exact a terrible price, even from a newly minted millionaire…

Into the Valley of Death (1986)
Written as Evelyn Hervey.

Third in the trilogy about Harriet Unwin, a Victorian Governess.

The Man of Gold (1985)
Written as Evelyn Hervey.

Second in the trilogy about Harriet Unwin, a Victorian Governess.

The Governess (1983)
Written as Evelyn Hervey.

First in the trilogy about Harriet Unwin, a Victorian Governess.

A Remarkable Case of Burglary (1975)

Val Leary is handsome, charming and broke. On the morning of April Fool’s Day 1871, while walking through one of London’s wealthiest districts, he notices a young maidservant scrubbing the steps of 53 Northbourne Park Villas. In that instant he conceives the idea for a remarkable case of burglary. The set-up seems perfect, but chance intervenes in a succession of coincidences that place the jewels further and further beyond the reach of Val and his cronies – until…