FEBRUARY 1942: The Struma, a broken-down steamer, explodes and sinks in the Black Sea, drowning 768 Rumanian Jews fleeing the Nazis and heading for Palestine, and safety. JUNE 1944: Thirty-one SAS soldiers are captured behind enemy lines and are forced to dig their own graves before being shot and buried in a forest in the heart of France. SEVENTY YEARS LATER: A young woman is attacked in the grounds of Edinburgh Zoo – the attacker seeking the document that might link these two wartime events. Set in Scotland, Britain and central France, The Hard Swim is the third in the Sam Dyke Investigations series. Based on true events, and with action ranging from bustling Edinburgh through to a quiet village in the centre of France, The Hard Swim pits Sam Dyke against his toughest opponents yet—an experienced team of killers backed by a ruthless MP about to ascend to one of the great roles of State.

Sam Dyke is a private investigator from a working-class environment who works amongst the wealthy and privileged of the Cheshire set—those whose morals and levels of discretion are offensive to him and go against his own values, forged in a strong family environment. Like Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade he has a clear view of what the world is actually like, but he nevertheless wants evil-doers set straight and will do what he can to help. In The Private Lie Sam is asked by his long-lost son to find his girlfriend, Kelly, who has disappeared. Sam is at first reluctant because his son is threatening him—not the basis for a good client relationship. But when he starts his investigation he quickly comes across two Liverpudlian gangsters—the Ginger Twins—who provoke him with their arrogance and crude criminal behaviour that includes corruption and probably murder. He also learns that the Twins are under surveillance from an undercover police operation, which he’s threatening to blow wide open by confronting them and putting them on their guard. So Sam is squeezed from all sides as he gets to the bottom of the Twins’ criminal empire. In the end Sam and the Twins are set on a headlong confrontation that can only terminate in death or destruction. Filled with fascinating characters, intriguing situations and exciting action, The Private Lie has topped Amazon’s ‘hard-boiled crime’ charts in both the UK and the US.

Making a killing in business is one thing - doing it for real is another. Private Investigator Sam Dyke turns down a job that would require skills that he doesn't have - patience, computer-literacy, tact. Then he finds that the skills he does have - tenacity, aggression, street-smarts - are exactly the ones he needs for his next case - hunting down a cold-blooded murderer who seems to know what his every step will be. To solve the case Sam must negotiate with his ex-wife, cement a relationship with a new love, unravel an office-based financial fraud and fight off an arrogant murderer armed only with a pen-knife. Altered Life is fast-paced, bitterly comic and introduces a tough new English private eye who knows what he wants and, usually, how to get it.