New Crime Fiction Book
BTPHG member Gary Powell fills us in on his recent publication.
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Following a long career in the British Transport Police (BTP) I’m often asked if I miss the ‘job’. Some aspects, for example: working long unsociable hours, the trail of never-ending paperwork and having your every move recorded and examined; then my answer would be certainly not. However I do miss the banter and the dark sense of humour shared among all members of the emergency services; behaviour which is frowned upon in today’s modern, woke police service. Of course some habits are hard to leave behind: sitting with your back to the wall facing the door in a pub comes to mind.
My first crime novel Mind the Killer introduces DI Ryan McNally and DS Marcia Frost; members of the BTP Major Investigations Team. McNally is a detective with some traditional views. Frost is young and very keen to impress. Both work in a unique policing environment and serve in a police force that is frequently over-looked in contemporary crime fiction and often mis-represented.
   The novel is set on London’s underground. When the skeletal remains of a male are discovered in an unused, subterranean, tunnel beneath Lambeth North London Underground station McNally and Frost are called in to investigate. It soon becomes apparent, from the crime scene examination, that the victim had been murdered and buried some twenty years earlier. Just as the pieces begin to fall into place a new mystery unfurls and lands on McNally’s desk. A string of female suicides across several London tube stations emerges to be a mask for a darkly orchestrated series of murders. As McNally’s team delves deeper, the eerie connection between the cold case they are investigating and the recent murders grows impossible to ignore.
   The London Underground has a community of workers serving a transient population of millions throwing up difficult challenges for any investigating detective. My novel will introduce a new world of police investigation to the crime reader and shine the spotlight on a very dedicated, hard-working, professional police force.
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Gary is a member of the Crime Writers Association.
The book is widely available through all the usual channels – Amazon, WH Smith, Waterstones etc.
Gary has previously written four true crime non-fiction books.