by Alan Bexley
I hope that you have enjoyed spending time with Detective Sergeant Frank Grey, DC Helen Walker and the other officers at Arundel Road police station. This is my first foray into crime fiction writing and my debut novel.
I have been studying creative writing for more than three years and writing part-time. I have written three unpublished practice novels and I have more incomplete manuscripts than I care to count. Now I can get down to the business of being a self-employed author.
I am a fan of the novels by Ian Rankin and Peter James to mention just two. I love police procedurals both as books and tv series. I also enjoy speculative fiction especially the more fantastic fantasies. I’ve been an avid reader from an early age.
I live on the south coast of England in the ‘vicinity’ of the fictional Westchapel and my star sign is Virgo.
Make the most of life!
Alan Bexley, September 2019
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Rebecca Bradley who was a police officer for 15 years, finishing as a detective constable when she retired for medical reasons. She vetted this novel so I did not make too much of a fool of myself. I have taken a couple of liberties so any errors/exaggerations that you spot are down to me and certainly not Rebecca.
Author Lesley Eames has critiqued my efforts and lead me through a number of rewrites for which I am very grateful.
My beta readers, Liz Barnham, Leonie Elliott, Jenny Morgan, Malvia Powell, Martin Scaman and Jade Wheatley have been invaluable in giving lively opinions on my characters and I thank them too.
Mel Tester was responsible for proof-reading the finished product and, hopefully, found all of my typos and other errors.
Finally, thanks for the words of encouragement from family and friends.
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Alan Bexley, 2019
The right of Alan Bexley to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without express written permission of the copyright holder.
Published by Sibley & Woodgate
If you live in the UK . . .
You contact the police in an emergency by calling 999
You report a crime by calling 101
If you have information, you can contact Crimestoppers in confidence and anonymously by calling 0800 555111 or at crimestoppers-uk.org
Alternatively, you can be fearless and speak out against violence by going to fearless.org to make a report anonymously.