Last Train to Lime Street

Introduction to the series

Introduction to the seriesWelcome aboard Last Train to Lime Street, the 6th instalment in what began as a single standalone novel, with A Mersey Killing. Such was that book's success however, that the decision was taken to begin a series of books featuring Detective Inspector Andy Ross, Detective Sergeant Izzie Drake and their colleagues on the fictional Merseyside Police, Special Murder Investigation Team. This elite squad is brought in to solve what appear to be extra-difficult or mysterious killings in the large metropolitan area covered by the Merseyside Police Force. Of course, much of their work is concentrated in and around the city of Liverpool and in creating the characters that populate the books, in particular Ross and his team, I decided to make them as 'real' as possible by basing a great deal of their personalities and personalities of members of my own family, as recalled from my younger days as a boy in Liverpool, and those who have read A Mersey Killing will realise why I had to use my memories of them as they were in the 1960s in order to make things work.

When the second book in the series, All Saints, Murder on the Mersey, performed equally as well as the first, and book 3, A Mersey Maiden, won a 2018 Book of the Year Award, it looked as if the characters were doing a pretty good job.

They were followed by the equally successful, award-winning A Mersey Mariner and A Very Mersey Murder, and believe it or not, by then, some of my characters were attracting fan mail of their own, as I received a number of communications from readers who have their favourite characters and seem to have developed attachments to them and their lives and actions, much as TV viewers often do with the characters in their preferred soap operas. Newlywed Detective Constable Derek McLennan watch out, you have a female fan following!

As always, my thanks go to the people and the city of Liverpool, without whom none of the Mersey Mysteries could exist.