You are never too young nor too old to start writing. After thirty years as a police officer when I submitted thousands of reports and files, including those destined for the Director of Public Prosecutions, in London, I still hadn’t done what I always said I would. Write a novel.

That happened in the early years of this century. The trigger was reading something called Fifty Shades of something or other. My story, The Grove, will never see the light of day without major surgical reconstruction. However that led to two World War II novels, Roberto’s War and A Secret’s Worth none of them complete.

Then I thought about the old adage, write about what you know. But where to begin? Books written about senior detectives with bags of experience,  or even junior detectives, but still experienced, are legion.

No-one had ever written a police procedural from Day1 of a police officer’s career. And so Brian Blake was born – I was 72 years of age! How could I forge a story around that? There are planners and pantsters. Planners plan. Pantsters fly by the seat of their pants. I’m in the latter group. Slowly, based on my personal experience and using the former No3 District Police Training Centre at Pannal Ash, Harrogate as a backdrop the story began to unfold. More of Pannal Ash under the About dropdown.

However the manuscript was far too long. I chopped off the front half and built the story from there. Entitled: Counting The Dead it covers the last half of Brian Blake’s probationary period. I hated losing the time and effort.

I sent my manuscript to several dozen literary agents but to no avail. They either were not interested and ignored me or it wasn’t for them. In the meantime via LinkedIn I met several very interesting people including a ghostwriter from Los Angeles who thought my work was excellent and even gave me an introduction to a Hollywood film producer, Sydell Albert. She also liked my work but I had no track record. In the circumstances there was little chance of progression. So far she hasn’t said NO.

Through LinkedIn I also met, from Los Angeles, an author of detective novels and literary judge who compared my work to James Paterson. That sort of encouragement you can’t buy.

At this point I was seriously considering self-publishing. I also hated losing the massive amount of story languishing in my computer. I turned that into a prequel and had it professionally edited. The resultant comments were less than totally positive and so I split the work into two sections and re-wrote the lot. The Blooding of Brian  Blake – Book2 in the series and the first novel covers the time Blake spent at Pannal Ash: Nemesis – Book3 and the second novel,  fills the gap to Counting The Dead – Book4

Whilst this was going on David Booker from Dayton, Ohio who has read all my work and is constantly berating me for not getting into print messaged me. ‘You’ve written a lot about Brian and mentioned his father who has an important role in Blake’s story. Will you write something about him?’

That novella is Dance With The Devil – Book1 and only available as a FREE DOWNLOAD from this site.

So, Counting The Dead which would have been Book1 in the series is now Book4. Book5: Death in The Slushpile introduces Brian Blake as a detective.

What the future holds I have no idea but you can only fail when you stop trying.