The great advantage of writing both short stories and novels is that one can be unfaithful to one's loyal characters and return to them when the fancy takes you (or publishers or editors request their presence, of course).

With the occasional lapse, I live chiefly with six characters, all very different. Marsh & Daughter live in the present time, and only about ten miles away from me; they have chosen not to have their photos included for reasons of personal safety (being mobbed by ardent fans?). Three of the others are listed below, two happy to have their likenesses displayed, the third withholding his in professional modesty. The sixth – well, for him click the About Jack Colby button.

Check the Books page for more details on my live-in partners' cases

Marsh & Daughter: Peter and Georgia Marsh investigate crimes from the past, which frequently bring them under threat in the present, if long festering passions are aroused. Peter is an ebullient wheelchair-bound ex-cop, and his daughter Georgia, having escaped from a disastrous marriage to a conman, is married to their publisher Luke Frost. The sparky relationship between father and daughter is a spur to their resurrecting forgotten or unsolved crimes where injustice has occurred.

Their interest in taking on a case stems from their sensing unfinished business in the atmosphere of a place or building, their privately named 'fingerprints on time' theory.

In their sixth case, Murder Takes the Stage, Peter and Georgia investigate the case of a clown who in 1952 was tried for the murder of his wife. He was acquitted but then disappeared. In the seventh, Murder on the Old Road, a drama group recreates a pilgrimage on the Pilgrims’ Way between Winchester and Canterbury, but with horrendous results. In Murder in Abbot’s Folly to be published in September 2011, Peter and Georgia are doing their best to enjoy the delights of a Jane Austen Gala Day at a decaying eighteenth-century house when murder becomes part of the menu.

Jack Colby had his own page on this site, but insists on being included here as well. Jack is a car detective, working with a specialist Kent police crime unit when he is not at Frogs Hill Classic Car Restorations Ltd. His partners, crusty Len Vickers and sparky Zoe Grant, do the nuts and bolt work on the restorations, but cash flow is always a problem. Jack is a new sleuth so far as murder cases are concerned, with his first novel Classic in the Barn being published by Severn House in February 2011 and his first short story appearing in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine the same month.

Auguste Didier is a master chef, working in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods; he has made full length appearances in eleven novels as well as many bows in short stories. He has a high opinion of his own powers as a chef, so much so that he is a reluctant detective - and shares the role with Inspector Egbert Rose of Scotland Yard. Beginning with Murder in Pug's Parlour his most recent novel was Murder in the Queen's Boudoir, but his annoyance at not being currently in the limelight was alleviated by his reappearance of some of his best cases in Murder, 'Orrible Murder and of some new cases in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

Tom Wasp is a chimney sweep in Victorian London's East End, and together with Ned, his former climbing boy apprentice, clears up many a murky crime. Tom has a heart of gold and he and Ned form a strong team. His new full-length novel, Tom Wasp and the Newgate Knocker, has recently been published by Five Star Publishing, US. Tom visits a friend in Newgate prison who on the eve of her execution hands him a pawn ticket. What happens next leads Tom not only into the heart of Victorian gangland in London’s East End, but into a tense international situation. It is available in hardback from www.amazon.com  and the audio version is available from Isis from September 2010. He also appears in short stories, and ‘Tom Wasp and the Muffin Man’ will shortly be published by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

Parson Caleb Pennywick: Parson Pennywick, being busy with his eighteenth-century pastoral work in the Kentish village of Cuckoo Leas, only appears in short stories, but he is glad to find time for his detective work if it helps his small community. Nevertheless he is always glad to return to the comforting arms and cuisine of his housekeeper Dorcas. He works at a time when smuggling is rife however, and his conscience does not always agree with the law of the land.His short story ‘Parson Pennywick Takes the Waters’ in which he investigates a murder in the Tunbridge Wells Pantiles, first published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine will appear in the 2011 volume of Best British Crime and ‘Parson Pennywick in Arcadia’ appeared in the June 2010 issue of Ellery Queen.