Well, Sharon, I’ve always been a voracious reader. As a kid, I would devour books, one after another, and even as I was reading them I would be asking myself what worked for me, what didn’t, and how I would change the bits that didn’t if I could.
My favourite books growing up were the Just William stories by Richmal Crompton, the Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan series, the Robert E. Howard Conan adventures, and anything by Alistair MacLean and Agatha Christie – except for the Poirot books, which for some reason I didn’t enjoy. As I got older, I progressed onto meatier stuff. I couldn’t get enough of writers like Frederick Forsyth, Eric Van Lustbader, John Le Carrie and Len Deighton.
By the time I grew up, I was convinced that I had at least one book in me and I promised myself that, one day, I would get actually around to writing it, even if it was just to tick it off my bucket list. When I retired from the police in 2015, I decided that it was finally time to stop procrastinating and get on with it! That led to me writing my first instalment in the DCI Tyler Thriller series, Jack’s Back. Since then I haven’t looked back.
If you had to give an elevator pitch for your latest book Unlawfully at Large, what would it be?
Claude Winston’s a drug dealing pimp who’s been remanded to prison while awaiting trial for the attempted murder of two police officers. The evidence against him is overwhelming and he knows that he’s looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars so, when an opportunity to escape arises, he seizes it in both hands, leaving a trail of death and destruction in his wake. DCI Jack Tyler is the man who caught Winston the first time around, and now he has to do it all over again, before the fugitive can be smuggled out of the UK to begin a new life in a country without extradition.
Tyler knows that this won’t be easy; there are very few clues to go on and his team are met by a wall of silence on the streets. Tyler’s not the sort of man to let to take no for an answer or let anyone get in his way, but even he is struggling to make any progress with this case.
Describe DCI Jack Tyler in 3 words.
Strong. Driven. Honourable.
