While perusing my book shelves, I look fondly on certain tomes.  Some authors are ones I haven’t heard about in a while…  I have highly positive memories of their work. Where are they now?  Are they still writing?

In this blog post, I aim to introduce you to two of these exemplary crime novelists. Perhaps you’ve heard of one of them, or perhaps, if you’re a huge crime fiction fan such as myself, you’re familiar with both of these names.  If you have NOT heard of them, then perhaps it is time to start yet another new reading adventure.

Most of the novels I’ve mentioned in this post are available on Amazon (though not all are available in Kindle format).  If you can’t find them on Amazon, check out your local public library.  If they don’t have them, then perhaps they will get them from another library for you via inter-library loan.  And, last but not least… there is always the treasure hunt you can perform in your local used bookstore.

Julia-Wallis Martin was born in Sussex, England. Her first novel, the Edgar nominated A Likeness in Stone, was filmed as a two-part drama by the BBC. Her second novel, The Birdyard,was one that stands out in my memory.

An entire house, long submerged in the dark waters of a reservoir, unearths a starting find: the corpse of Helena Warner, an Oxford college student who disappeared twenty years earlier. For former homicide detective Bill Driver, it means the reopening of a case that, in his mind, was never really closed. And Driver thinks he knows who did it. But three of Helena’s friends– her cold former lover Ian Gilmore, her jealous best friend Joan Poole, and talented but institutionalized artist Richard Wachmann– conspire to keep a decades-old, deadly secret from seeing the light of day…all the while, a killer continues to strike again and again.

When 12-year-old Joseph Coyne is missing and is assumed to have been abducted, Detective Parker makes a promise to the boy’s mother: We’ll get him back, alive. It proves to be a promise that Parker cannot keep. When another young boy is missing under similar circumstances, the evidence leads Parker to an aviary or bird yard attached to an abandoned house. While the finches imprisoned in the aviary exert a magical appeal to the young boys who surreptitiously come to watch them, its owner is a shadowy figure whose hold over his young visitors seems far more sinister. Convinced that the killer is stalking his third victim, a child Parker knows, he enlists the help of a child psychologist to unravel a dark secret.

Here is photo of the Julia Wallis Martin novels that I own:

Alison Taylor never intended to be a crime writer. In 1986 she was working as a senior social worker for the former Gwynedd County Council. Increasingly disturbed by reports of the alleged abuse of children in care, she took her concerns to the police. As a result she was fired. What her actions have helped to expose is one of Britain’s worst scandals of institutionalised physical and sexual abuse in children’s homes in North Wales. Disillusioned by the prospect of returning to social work, Alison concentrated on writing. Her first novel Simeon’s Bride evolved from a short story written for a national competition and was published in 1995. It won her outstanding critical acclaim and comparisons to PD James and Ruth Rendell. Her second novel In Guilty Night was a compelling story containing the controversial issue of child abuse. And most recently, The House of Women was published in 1998, again to widespread acclaim from the media. A television series featuring Superintendent Michael McKenna is currently under negotiation.

The novels in this series include:

#1 Simeon’s bride#2 In guilty night

#3 The house of women

#4 Unsafe convictions

#5 Child’s play

Here they are ‘in situ’ on my bookshelves:

I’d love to hear from you if you’ve read either of these two novelists – or, if you plan to. ♥