McLevy

by James McLevy

  END OF THE LINE

  Exclusive eBook-only edition. When the body of a handsome, fleshy man is found on the Newcastle to Edinburgh train with the livid mark of a garotte round his throat like a lethal necklace, naturally the first port of call is Leith Police Station and Inspector James McLevy. The corpse is discovered to be one ‘Count Borromeo’, a ruthless seducer and amoral bigamist; it soon emerges that Jean Brash’s coachman, the ginger-haired giant Angus Dalrymple, was also aboard the train and is the number one suspect, a fact that sets Jean and the inspector once more at daggers drawn. When McLevy and Constable Mulholland finally unravel this case, the murderer is confronted in a deadly encounter on the girders and high gantries above Waverley Station. This is an adaptation of an episode of the BBC series based around the Victorian detective James McLevy, developed for Radio 4 by David Ashton.

  THE PAINTED LADY

  A dead judge’s wife is suspected of poisoning him and the Haymarket police think they have a foolproof case. They have undisclosed evidence she has been having an affair with a society artist plus the fact that a quantity of arsenic has been found in the judge’s body. She appeals for help to McLevy though the case is not in his parish; there is an ambivalent quality to her, an elusive attraction that the Inspector can’t resist. Nor can Leith’s finest avoid the temptation of getting one over his Haymarket colleagues. In a world of corruption, drugs and unfaithfulness who is to be believed? McLevy finds the answer but will justice be done?

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  McLEVY: THE EDINBURGH DETECTIVE

  James McLevy, an Edinburgh policeman, was one of the first exponents of the crime genre and a likely influence on the creator of Sherlock Holmes. This book features a collection of stories based on some of the 2,220 cases he dealt with in the course of his career, evoking the spirit of the city, and the vivid descriptions of its criminal classes. Edinburgh has provided the backdrop to stories of detection for almost a century and a half. In the 1860s, a few years before Conan Doyle began his medical studies at Edinburgh University, there appeared a hugely popular series of books with titles including “Curiosities of Crime in Edinburgh”, “The Sliding Scale of Life” and “The Disclosures of a Detective”. They were all the work of one James McLevy, an Edinburgh policeman. The now largely forgotten, McLevy was one of the first exponents of the crime genre and a likely influence on the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Like Conan Doyle, McLevy had an Irish background. He was born in Co Armagh, the son of a small farmer. Largely self-educated, he joined the Edinburgh police force in 1830 as a night watchman before rising up through the ranks to become a detective. The collection of stories in this book are based on some of the 2,220 cases he dealt with in the course of his career, wonderfully evoking the spirit of the city, and the vivid descriptions of its criminal classes as they moved between the very different worlds of the Old and New Towns. It is introduced by Quintin Jardine.