Having been given a Kindle for my birthday I thought I would try out some new authors from the free selection on Amazon. This is a good way to get to know different writers before buying books. The one that looked my sort of book was written by Katherine John, a crime writer. Katherine John is a pen name of the author Catrin Collier. She was born and brought up in Pontypridd and worked for a while in Europe and America before returning to her native Wales. She now lives on the Gower Peninsula near Swansea, with her family.
Without Trace – 1990
This is Katherine John’s first novel and it involves a detective named Trevor Joseph.
In the chilly half-light of dawn, a bizarre Pierrot figure waits in the shadows of a deserted stretch of motorway. The costumed hitchhiker’s victim was a passing motorist. The murder was cold-blooded and brutal and seemingly without motive. The story progresses, involving various doctors at the local hospital, including Tim and Daisy Sherringham who appear to be the perfect couple. Tim disappears early one morning and Daisy is plunged into a nightmare of terror and doubt.
For a first novel, this book was gripping from the start and I am looking forward to more intrigue from further novels by this talented author.
Murder of a Dead Man – 1994
The third novel by Katherine John involving Trevor Joseph.
Sergeant Trevor Joseph has started a promising new life with Lyn Sullivan. But their developing relationship begins to disintegrate when a vagrant’s gruesome murder pulls Joseph away from home and onto Jubilee Street – the skid row of a small English seaside town. When
Joseph and his colleagues report to the crime scene, they find only an unrecognizable body, an empty bottle of whiskey, and the lingering scent of gasoline. With little evidence to guide it, the investigation becomes even more complicated when the victim is identified as a young lawyer who actually died two years earlier. Sergeant Joseph, enlisting the help of an old love, deciphers the connection between the body found on Jubilee Street and the dead attorney, but not before several more homeless are killed and a member of Joseph’s investigation team confronts a ghost from the past.
A Well Deserved Murder – 2008
Another Trevor Joseph novel including Sergeant Peter Collins.
There have always been neighbours from hell and some deserved to die! Most people stop short of this heinous crime, but when Peter Collins looks at Kacy Howell’s axe-battered corpse, he has to ask himself if his cousin Alan had committed the crime. Alan had experienced various mysteries including his plants and building materials disappearing overnight. It is suggested that he put up CCTV, but Alan has other ideas. Trevor Joseph and Peter Collins find themselves wanting to look beyond the obvious suspect for the murder, which Kacy’s neighbours have already christened ‘justifiable homicide’.
So far, there are 7 novels involving Trevor Joseph, the last one coming out in 2010.