MY PUBLICATION PAL OF THE MONTH MARCH 2026
Richard is my mentor and guide who has been helping me for years. He emerged from the depths (see picture) into my life when I lived in the South of France and he joined the Writing Group I was a member of. With his vast experience as a journalist and as a writer, he was a great help to al of the members. We have shared our experiences over the years as the body of work of both of us has grown.
Richard is an ex-journalist with a long career in writing, both fiction and non fiction. He brings a vast experience to his writing. His books are enlivened by his knowledge of history, of food and drink and of people in general.
Richard’s work includes Thrillers, Sagas, Who-dun-its and Memoirs – all of them of the highest standard.
Choose any of his books and you will be immersed in a work of gripping plots and fascinating characters.
Richard’s Books
The Walpole Bay Hotel series of detective stories
The country is at war. The Kaiser isn’t satisfied with Germany and wants more. And in sleepy Margate two elderly widows lunch and dine in the elegant new Walpole Bay Hotel. The hotel, however, seems to attract all sorts of trouble. People seemed to be murdered there with alarming frequency. Fear not! Dorothy and Effie revel in their new pastime of sleuthing, and justice will be done in spite of the incompetent Inspector Page., Richard’s series of whimsical detective novels will delight you.
1914 is going to be a momentous year. World War 1 is declared, Britain is gripped by ‘spymania,’ and Robson the barman at the Walpole Bay Hotel has invented a new cocktail: the Walpole Bay Slammer.
Meanwhile a murdered German diplomat is found in a London flat, a body is discovered on a Margate beach, and a suspicious guest arrives at the fashionable Walpole Bay Hotel. When a third body is found, the mystery deepens. Inspector ‘Artful’ Archie Page of the Dover police arrives to investigate. He thinks he has the answers. Dorothy Coates and her friend Effie Dalrymple do not agree. Ladies of a certain age, Dorothy and Effie have a taste for fast cars, a good Chablis with lunch, and definitely cocktails before dinner. An unlikely pair of sleuths, Page sees them as a nuisance. They see the Inspector as a man in need of help.
The year is 1915.
There is excitement in the seaside town of Margate when silent movie star, Dolores del Ruth, and her partner Gregory Martinez, arrive to make their latest movie. They are the perfect screen couple. But all is not as it seems, and when Martinez suddenly drops dead cracks begin to appear in the façade. Martinez has been murdered; poisoned with cyanide. Inspector ‘Artful’ Archie Page of the Dover CID is brought in to investigate. He immediately arrests Robson, the barman at the Walpole Bay Hotel. When Robson has an alibi, But she also has an alibi. Page then arrest Dolores, but she has an alibi. So instead he arrests local theatrical agent, Douglas Carstairs – but he too has an alibi. Page is stumped. Waiting in the wings are Dorothy and Effie, two ladies of a certain age who enjoy a racy life of fast cars, cocktails and a good bottle of wine with lunch. They are also amateur sleuths. They think Page needs help – the inspector disagrees, but things only get worse; there are two more murders. While Page flounders, the two ladies get to work. But even they will find there are complications.
Room 308 has been permanently reserved by an unknown client since shortly after the hotel opened in 1914 – but nobody ever stays there. Two years on, the room continues to be paid for – but it remains unoccupied. Or does it?
Upstairs maid, Annie Byford is changing the linen on the third floor. Passing room 308 she claims she hears noises coming from it, though on her list the room is recorded as empty.
Harland Grist, hotel handyman, enters room 308 to change a light bulb. He never comes out again.
The Hilliers, guests in room 307 next door, are disturbed in the night by noises coming from 308. Dr Hillier goes to complain. He too disappears.
Chief Inspector Page is brought in to investigate but a search of 308 reveals nothing – it is empty. The whisper around Margate is of supernatural happenings at the Walpole Bay Hotel. The newspapers get onto the story. Speculation is rife; spooks and ghouls are reported. The disappearances are blamed on occult happenings at the hotel. According to some, there is a phantom roaming the corridors of the place, in the diabolical form of a werewolf.
Page is dismissive of such nonsense. He’s looking for a rational explanation. Then the body of Harland Grist is found on the beach. He has died, not from drowning but from a severed carotid artery. He has been bitten in the neck. The pathologist says it was by a wolf – but there are no wolves in Margate. Page is baffled but refuses to accept the now hysterical belief of the locals that there really is a beast of the occult stalking the area. He is convinced that the maid, Annie Byford, is responsible for Grist’s death and arrests her.
Jane Bishop, proprietor of the Walpole Bay Hotel, is desperate. She wants answers. The publicity in the press threatens to ruin her business. Page is proving to be useless – Jane calls in Dorothy and Effie to investigate. They are her only hope.
The Girls from New York series
In the dying years of a patriarchal era, three women struggle to assert their identity. Jane van Rensselaer and Elizabeth Hadlow in New York, and Cecily Markham in England, are in conflict with their families over the men in their lives, and the direction of their futures.
Jane and Elizabeth are the daughters of millionaire press barons, Sherman van Rensselaer and Elwood Hadlow; the new money. Sent on a European tour by their fathers, it is meant to be for their education. The girls have other ideas. Jane is a socialite; she wants to shop in the great stores of Paris and London. Elizabeth is an idealist fighting for women’s emancipation. In London she gets herself thrown into prison for riotous assembly at a meeting of Mrs Pankhurst’s suffragettes. The American ambassador is not impressed and requests that the girls leave London. In Paris they have a chance meeting with James Woodville, sole heir of a London banking family, and his friend Rupert, son of General Sir Horley Markham and brother to Cecily. In 1913 the delights of the city are still there to be enjoyed and under its hedonistic veil the four of them form relationships which will collide with the ambitions of their parents.
In the dying years of a patriarchal era, three women struggle to assert their identity. Jane van Rensselaer and Elizabeth Hadlow in New York, and Cecily Markham in England, are in conflict with their families over the men in their lives, and the direction of their futures.
Jane and Elizabeth are the daughters of millionaire press barons, Sherman van Rensselaer and Elwood Hadlow; the new money. Sent on a European tour by their fathers, it is meant to be for their education. The girls have other ideas. Jane is a socialite; she wants to shop in the great stores of Paris and London. Elizabeth is an idealist fighting for women’s emancipation. In London she gets herself thrown into prison for riotous assembly at a meeting of Mrs Pankhurst’s suffragettes. The American ambassador is not impressed and requests that the girls leave London. In Paris they have a chance meeting with James Woodville, sole heir of a London banking family, and his friend Rupert, son of General Sir Horley Markham and brother to Cecily. In 1913 the delights of the city are still there to be enjoyed and under its hedonistic veil the four of them form relationships which will collide with the ambitions of their parents.
WW1 explodes and disrupts the plans of everyone. In the aristocratic home of the Markhams, as they lament the shortage of servants, a rift splits Cecily from her parents and her brother Rupert, when she announces she will marry impoverished farmer’s son Peter Dorsey. In a clash of class order, her father forbids it. There are threats of committal to an asylum for weak minded women if she does not abandon the idea. Cecily leaves home, taking refuge in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps and the world of war. Sent to France to become an ambulance driver she sets out to find Dorsey. Her mind is set; if family will not allow her to marry him, then she will become his lover.
In the trenches and the skies above, as Rupert, James and Peter fight the war of the old guard, Jane and Elizabeth in New York, manoeuvre towards control of their own lives. Like Cecily Markham, they struggle against their father’s wishes and their plans for the girls’ futures. Stubborn in its ways, the old order tries to resist change and the displacement of ancient class privilege. But the world is changing. It is the age of the motorcar, the telephone, and the growing rise of women – and of their liberation from the tyranny of the corset.