Finger of Suspicion

This novel depicts events that happened to officers from Strathclyde Police covering the periods between 1990 and 2003. The names have been changed in most circumstances to protect those involved but the detail within the stories reflect events that happened and written by me in my own words as an interpretation of what I recall.

Being a police officer during this time was rewarding and I met many lovely people whilst I worked there and still remain friends with many of them.

Policing during that era was difficult and drugs were a major scourge in the deprived areas in the north of Glasgow and many families lost loved ones through overdose or other serious drug related illnesses. The criminal gangs operated in these areas ruled by fear with many drug dealers only doing it to repay a debt.

The stories provide an insight into a behind the scenes look at how investigations are managed and the characters involved in running them. It is a sad depiction of life at the front end of policing, dealing with death and misery. More alarmingly, it will discuss the lack of support provided by senior officers towards other lower level colleagues.

The author used every power of strength and determination to set the record straight with some of the events and was helped by a few other like-minded friends. It is a story of belief in one another and colleagues involved in these incidents all looked out for one another—which didn’t always happen but I am glad we did!

Fermented Spirits

Stevie Monroe and John Beverage have been friends since childhood. They are now settled in the Gorbals, a Glasgow slum. Stevie is elated when his French wife, Camile, becomes pregnant with their one and only son. John Beverage and his wife, Caroline, already have two sons. The last thing they need is yet another mouth to feed.

It’s 1902, the working classes are suffering from extreme poverty and exploitation. Men line the docks in droves on a daily basis looking for work. Even when you have a trade, as Stevie and John do, work is extremely dangerous. Drunkenness is a perennial cause of casual cruelty. Boot-legging is rife. John sets up a family distillery for some extra cash to survive, but turns more and more towards the drink himself, dishing out back-handers to his family.

Stevie, meanwhile, lives his life as a shipbuilding sheet metal worker – a friend, a husband, a father, and a man with a deviance that has to be kept secret at all costs. Deviant sexual practices are abhorred, resulting in life imprisonment, suicide and murder. For homosexual men, especially those from the working classes, Britain is in the dark ages. Navigating this world leads Stevie to a life wrought with worry, confusion, murder and love.

Excalibur's Gold

A couple's search through the historical wonders of the Welsh countryside for clues to the greatest discovery of all times: King Arthur himself.

Join them as their search takes them from the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct near Llangollen to the Devil's Bridge via the shore line St. Govan's Chapel in Pembrokeshire, all because of a clue found in an old oil painting of the Britannia Bridge on Anglesey.

Erpingham

In an age when kings were ordained by God and the powerful waded through Europe up to their knees in blood, a wide-eyed 13-year-old boy first went to war. Over time he learned to look death in the face and, with grimace, draw his sword.

He was afraid of neither man nor God.

Surviving the Black Death, disastrous battles and campaigns in foreign lands and the machinations of kings, bishops and nobles, Sir Thomas Erpingham fought across a continent, defended the interests of England and became the unsung hero of Agincourt.

Endless Mission II

This is the second book to the plot Endless Mission, set in scenes, of a vivid World War I espionage drama.

Endless Mission

This is a fictional plot, set in scenes, of a vivid World War I espionage drama.

Daughter of Asher

“They tried siege ladders last night, but we were warned and shot naphtha flares into the city. The archers kneel behind the upper rampart and, as the Lady Im’Annas, our Seer, walks past, they rise up and shoot over her head. The Parthians are too superstitious to even try to shoot at her…” 

            The prophetess, Serah, daughter of Asher, arrives at the temple in AD 70, so does the Roman general, Pompey, but unlike him, she does not leave.

Damn Your Eyes...STOP!

A well-dressed young man makes his way into the Bald Faced Stag Inn, Putney Vale, London and books lodging for a few nights. With a wide smile and gracious pleasantries, he takes his key from the unsuspecting innkeeper. Little does the innkeeper know, this young man is about to embark on a journey that is, to say the least, defiant, unpleasant and often shocking. It soon becomes apparent that he’s not all that he appears to be.

Damn your eyes...Stop! Tells the story of Lewis Jeremiah Avershaw, a notorious highwayman who terrorised travellers in the late 18^th century. His short life was one of terror and violence that led to the inevitable conclusion...the gallows.

Conspiracy of Ravens

On a Leicestershire battlefield in 1485, the course of British history changed. One man, a minor Welsh noble, was instrumental in effecting this change, enabling the establishment of the new Tudor dynasty. This little-known historical figure was Rhys ap Thomas, who claimed descent from Urien Rheged, one of the knights of King Arthur. Born in Carmarthenshire in West Wales, he had spent his early years in Burgundy with his father, in exile, as had two other men, Henry Tudor and Richard III. The three young boys were to meet many years later on the battlefield, where the lives of all three would change forever.

This is the story, set in the turbulent period of the Wars of Roses, of Rhys ap Thomas, whose claim to fame would be ‘the man who killed Richard III’.

Broken Link

Owen Link, working as a hitman for the mob had one job to do, little did he know this job would lead to his undoing.

Now on the run from the mob and the law, Owen must prove that although several murders he may have committed, this one was not done by his hand. Running out of options Owen turns to an old friend, Robert, for help. Now working for the F.B.I. Robert would hold Owen’s fate in his hands.

Going against his better judgement Robert decides to help, unaware this would uncover secrets he thought had been buried long ago. Keeping Owen out of jail, however, would prove difficult when Robert and his partner Charlie, realize that this murder holds many similarities to their existing case. Now on the case, will Robert help Owen escape, or use him to save himself from the demons of his past?

Bright Shadow

This is the story of Katherine Plantagenet, self-proclaimed “daughter, sister and aunt of kings” who endures extraordinarily traumatic reversals of fortune, as her life swings through wealth and adversity.  A glittering future as an English princess is swept away by the untimely death of her father, Edward IV, and the usurpation of her brother Edward V's throne. Surrounded by murderous intrigue, conspiracy and ambition, Katherine and her sisters fear what lies in store … The pragmatic marriage of the eldest, Bessy, to the victor of Bosworth, Henry Tudor, brings an uneasy peace to Katherine's young life but the shadows of suspicion and rebellion continue to swirl around her.  

Katherine witnesses first hand the events that plague her brother-in-law's reign. As a political expedient, she is given in marriage to William Courtenay, heir to the Earl of Devon, but Henry Tudor's paranoia soon falls upon her beloved young husband who is imprisoned in the Tower. An intelligent and resilient woman, in a world where men hold all the power, Katherine fights her way alone through a tense decade that ends in personal tragedy. With a vow of celibacy as her chosen route of self-preservation, Katherine continues to tread a wary path of survival ... until the charming Benedict Haute enters her life. However, the failure of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to produce a living son changes the way any Plantagenet is viewed by the king; Katherine knows her royal blood could cause trouble for her family.

Blue Sky

A baby girl is found by travelling Cheyenne. A brave and his wife bring Blue Sky up, as if she were their own, and she is happy to be one of the people, even after being told she was born of the white man.

While only in her teens she performs a coup which gives her all she had hoped for, full acceptance into the tribe and a forthcoming wedding to the brave she loves. But a jealous rival has other ideas. She arranges Blue Sky’s abduction telling her mother and father that she has run away.

Blue Sky is taken by an unscrupulous trader to a white man’s town. She is abused and enslaved but eventually finds help in the sheriff and school teacher.

Despite the risks, she comes to the aid of the Indian residents of a nearby reservation and, in so doing, encounters a brave who plots their escape from the town and reservation.

Then begins a long, dangerous and fateful journey home.