Haggard Hawk

Nathan Hawk is a recently retired police officer. A widower with four children scattered all over the world he has gone to live in a typical English village. He spends his time there struggling with an Anger Management Disorder and gardening for all he’s worth. He’s trying to kill time, time he never had as head of a Murder Squad ... time he never wanted, time he doesn’t want now.

Then, driving home one night from a dinner party in the company of a young, female G.P. he comes across a brutal murder and he’s right back where he used to be. Catching a killer.

A great read that races plum down the middle of the private-eye highway, complete with an ex-copper with a heart-to-let. It’s witty, well-observed and keeps you guessing. I was torn between devouring it at a sitting or snacking on it. Once I’d got it in my talons, however, I couldn’t let it go.
Bruce Alexander - Mullet, in A Touch of Frost

A terrific read and a great story with interesting, memorable characters. In Nathan Hawk, Marcus Barr has created a psychologically complex policeman fit to rival Rebus and Morse. There must be more!
John Nettles - Bergerac and Inspector Barnaby

Lament no more the lack of an English equivalent to Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Marcus Barr’s Nathan Hawk, former copper who can’t switch off, creates a new bench mark for UK crime novels. A wealth of unsmoked kippers, a village full of likely suspects and a laconic, powerful style create what one hopes will be the first of many outings for this rumpled man with impeccable hunter-seeker credentials.
Colin Baker - Dr. Who

We may dwell amongst those mean city streets but Nathan Hawk must go where a man must go: among those mean green wellies, crumbling loam and leafy lanes which turn out to be every bit as dark and treacherous as anything we townies have to address. The likeable Hawk, barred from a local murder investigation, nevertheless sets about stripping away a thatch of petty corruptions to solve this intriguing case.

Marcus Barr has given us a detective packed with humour, humanity, and red, red wine. This is one to spin around the glass and savour.
Mike Grady - Barry, Last of the Summer Wine

Haggard Hawk
Marcus Barr
ISBN 1905621 00 0 UK £6.99
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Incident 1986

Steve Morgan was convinced that a plot to launch a missile attack on Moscow was another telepathic a dream he'd had. An eminent Professor at the Medaliav Institute in Moscow becomes interested in Steve's story and seeks the help of a Russian expert in pyschic phenomena. Then when Scotland Yard investigates a second allegation of a possible strike, a time bomb starts ticking… Meanwhile, a ruthless group scheming to take the Falkland Islands back from the British were heading towards the Baltic Sea. By provoking Russia into making a nuclear strike against England as retaliation for an attack on Moscow, they intended ultimately to take back the Falklands. But Fritz Mueller, though a sworn enemy of Britain, remembered Stalingrad and knew he could not be the cause of such misery again.
Cleverly plotted, Incident 1986 has all the ingredients of a fast-paced thriller. An ingenious story that could actually have happened - perhaps it did?

Incident 1986
Don Moggs
Paperback -234 pages
ISBN 1-905203-07-1 UK £7.99
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Introducing Jim Gilham

When George Parfitt discovers two dead bodies in less than two days, first his wife and then his colleague, there simply had to be a connection – or was there?
The murder of scientist, Wayne Greene – Pafitt’s colleague – inexplicably took place behind the locked door of a laboratory within the ultra-modern Microbiology Department of Queen’s University. Was Wayne on the brink of some important discovery or was his rumoured affair with a colleague the motive behind such a brutal murder? And why was Parfitt’s wife found murdered outside their home?
Enter local Detective Inspector Jim Gilham – would his dedicated and systematic approach be sufficient to unravel the baffling mystery? Given just three days before Scotland Yard would be called in, Jim Gilham pulls out all the stops…
Cleverly plotted to keep the reader in suspense, Introducing Jim Gillham, is compulsive reading.

Introducing Jim Gilham
Will Frances
Paperback -136 pages
ISBN 1904754-25-2 UK £7.99
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Sweet Painted Lady

A restless young physics teacher whose life is in danger of passing him by… An attractive and sassy American art scholar with a painful past… A beery and portly security expert who owes an unforgettable debt… A happy family man with everything to lose… Four people who have little in common - except the germ of a frivolous idea that grows into the most audacious plot the art world has ever known. Driven by needs that go far beyond avarice, they head for Paris with only one thing in mind: to steal the Mona Lisa from under the snooty noses of the French establishment. Breathtakingly ingenious and sparkling with comedy, Sweet Painted Lady is a hugely enjoyable novel that suggests not all thieves are bad guys motivated by greed.

Sweet Painted Lady
Andrew Derham
Paperback -249 pages
ISBN 1904754-26-0 UK £6.99
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Through the Ruins of Midnight

“Forget Morse. Forget Frost. This is policing at the sharp end. Gritty. Witty. And real as a kick in the guts.”
Mick Habergham enjoys the nightshift; patrolling the midnight hours when the world is asleep and police work simple. Sunday night should be quiet but, as his mind wrestles with divorcing Angela, it will prove to be anything but.
From the mad knifeman of Hill Top Hostel to the most inept suicide attempt at the House of Pain, Mick will face all manner of obstacles to a peaceful night. If it isn’t Marak Vargo or Booger Smith, it will be the tragic pensioners of Maple Court or the battle at The Alex Public House.
Midnight ruins so many lives. Tonight one will threaten Mick’s own. If he wants a happy retirement he will first have to walk through fields of heartache and survive the ruins of midnight.
“Through the Ruins of Midnight is good, absorbing stuff – read and read it again!”

Through the Ruins of Midnight
Campbell
Paperback -222 pages
ISBN 1904754-54-6 UK £6.99
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