I am the author of thirteen novels, of which most are historical crime fiction.

Nine of my novels are in the Jim Stringer series, featuring an Edwardian railwayman turned railway policeman. The series achieved three CWA shortlistings, and in 2011 The Somme Stations won the Ellis Peters Award for Historical Crime Fiction.

My latest novel, Soot, is set in York in 1799, and concerns the murder of a silhouette painter. He has been killed by one of six people whose silhouette he has painted. The story is set during a snowy winter, creating a monochrome world. As the cover line says, ‘Can you catch a Shadow?’

Forthcoming on July 5th 2018 is my new novel, The Martian Girl. It is set partly in modern-day London and partly in 1898. The central character, Jean, is writing a play about Kate French, a female mind-reader on the Victorian music hall stage who had brief vogue before disappearing, apparently without trace. Kate French performed as The Martian Girl in company with her mind-reading partner, the dour Joseph Draper. As Jean searches the archives for traces of Kate, she begins to detect similarities between her (Kate’s) relationship with Draper, and her own with a married ex-lawyer called Coates…

I have also written six non-fiction books.Aside from writing books and journalism, I have written short stories for Radios 4 and 3, and I have written and presented three documentaries on BBC4.