A Medieval Trip and Church Wall Paintings

On September 28, 2022 By chrisnickson2In leeds, tom harper10 Comments

It’s been several years since we went up to Richmond. Well before the pandemic, in fact. It’s a glorious market town in North Yorkshire with a spacious market square and a fabulous Norman castle, a perfectly picturesque place

After so long, it was definitely time to go again. But first, a detour. Someone had told my partner about Easby Abbey, fairly close to Richmond – you can walk there along the river in about 40 minutes. I’d never heard of the place, but a quick search showed it, with the ancient church of St. Agatha alongside. Everything free.

Pulled into the car park and had a quick chat with the man who’d been picking rubbish.

‘I’ll open it up for you,’ he said, and unlocked the church.

Stepping inside was a revelation. The earliest part dates from not long after William the Conqueror invaded, and the font is also Norman, as are the stone benches by it – the only early seating in churches.

But the true glory is in the medieval wall paintings. They’d been covered over, probably to protect them during the Reformation or Civil War, to be uncovered in Victorian times and restored in the 1990s.

It’s estimated that the paintings date from around 1250 CE and tell different stories from the Bible. In those times, few could read, and the number that could read Latin – the only language in which the Bible was available here – was smaller still. Not even all priests would have been fully literate. Think of these paintings as holy comics or cartoons to tell the stories to the congregation.

It also boasts a (not especially great) replica of the Easby Cross. The original was found in the walls during work almost a century ago and sold to the V&A Museum in London. However, the design is quite something, as is the age, going back to the late 700s, making it an excellent example of a Saxon cross and probably from the first church on the site.

The church, restored a few times, is in a remarkably fine state; it really does take the breath away. After all, this isn’t even a church in a market town. It’s in an isolated hamlet. The name Easby derives from the Norse name Esi and the suffix by, meaning farm. At the time it was built, the entire parish held perhaps a hundred people.

It stands cheek and jowl by the ruins of Easby Abbey, which was built almost a century after the Norman part of the St. Agatha’s church. The abbey was a regional home to the Premonstratensian Order of regular canons, more widely known as the White Canons for the colour of their habits. They would have served as priests at St. Agatha’s and other churches all across the lands donated to them, and often distributed food where it was needed. They weren’t monks – their services was outside the abbey, not a contemplative life within the walls.

Even so, it’s a large place, one that lasted until the Dissolution in 1536, when those still there were granted pensions and sent on their way. The abbey slowly crumbled after that, and local would have taken stone for their own building projects. Yet even in the ruins there’s a sense of history; you can almost hear the voices of the canons.

What about Richmond? Great to see again, of course. It’s hardly changed, which is perhaps good. But the day was easily dominated by Easby.

Yes, a lovely detour to medieval times. But, please, I hope you’ll remember that A Dark Steel Death is now out.

Gipton Well And A Dark Steel Death

On September 21, 2022September 21, 2022 By chrisnickson2In leeds, tom harperLeave a comment

There’s a small place that plays an important role in A Dark Steel Death. Gipton Well, or Gipton Spa Bath House or Gipton Well and Waddington Bath, to offer the full titles, has its part in the book, although I’m not about to give you any spoilers on exactly what.

It’s one of about 26 wells or spas that once existed around Leeds (including the wonderfully-named Slavering Baby Well in Adel), but are mostly covered over or long forgotten, except in some local names, like Sugarwell in Meanwood).

It was originally built in 1671 by Edward Waddington. His grandfather, Alderman John Thwaites, owned Gledhow Hall, and the well was in the estate; on private property, in other words.

Like so many spas, the water which entered the bath house supposedly had healing properties supposedly head healing properties. Leeds historian Ralph Thoresby brought his son Richard there, attempting to cure him of rheumatism, and that involved sitting in the stone-built cold water bath. Lord Irwin was also a regular visitor.

Next to it was a room with a fire for undressing and warming up after a dip in the plunge pool, with a separate spring with water that could be drunk.

Thoresby referred to the place in his Ducatus Leodiensis, where he states the room with its fire is used “to sweat the patient after bathing”.

Edward Parsons also commended the place in his History of Leeds in 1834, and as late as 1881, Kelly’s Directory noted it was still in use, although now it’s “by people who live in the neighbourhood.”

Shortly after it had fallen into disuse and disrepair, to the extent that when the Honourable Hilda Kitson bought Well House Farm (again, the association with the well), which included the spa, she offered £200 to the Council to keep up the spa. The city bought the spa and the land around it in 1926, just after Gledhow Valley Road had opened a few yards away.

While the building has been there for a long, long time, no one seems sure when the walls around the pool were built; certainly much later. I’ve included them in the book purely for plot reasons.

The Friends of Gledhow Valley Woods (an excellent organisation who also provided much of the historical information from their website. Take a look at it here) have doner a great deal of work on the place, and now it’s surrounded by a metal fence to stop vandalism. However, it was open on Sunday as part of Heritage Open Days, and I was able to go inside and take some photos.

Tom Harper’s spectre didn’t fill the place. But after seeing the pictures you’ll be able to be there with him. And I’m sure you will read the book. Hopefully buy it, too, to make sure the final one in the series in published. Thank you.

When The Russian Revolution Came To Leeds

On September 14, 2022September 14, 2022 By chrisnickson2In leeds, tom harperLeave a comment

My newest book, A Dark Steel Death, takes place at the start of 1917. It’s a crime novel, but also a war novel – the war on the home front, where things were bleak. The Battle of the Somme the year before had killed and wounded so many of the young men from Leeds; it was said there wasn’t a street in the city that the fighting there hadn’t touch in some way.

But there was more going on the in the world. In Russia, the February Revolution (actually early March in the modern calendar) began to change everything in the country; November would cause a second, final rupture. In Britain, there was plenty of support from the labour movement, with an event held at London’s Albert Hall, attended by 10,000, with another 5,000 outside.

A second, known as the Leeds Convention, was set for June 3, organised by the United Socialist Council, made up of member of the British Socialist Party, the Independent Labour Party, and the Fabian Society.

I toyed with the idea of having that as the backdrop to a book set in 1917. Possibly one of the delegates might have been murdered, or someone protesting the convention. In the end, portraying the outside events in Russia felt a little too complex, and the idea held echoes of the backstory to Gods of Gold. I feel I made the right decision, but this remains a fascinating bit of Leeds history.

The intention was to hold it in Leeds’ Albert Hall – the big room in what was then the Mechanics’ Institute (now Leeds City Museum).

That was where the problems began. Unsurprisingly, the government didn’t want anything like this to happen in the middle of a war. They feared the idea of revolution could spread. They mooted the idea of banning it completely, but didn’t.

Instead, Leeds City Council refused to allow the use of the Albert Hall and ordered all hotel owners to refuse bookings from delegates, and they seemed to gladly comply. The police banned public meetings; anything to try and prevent things moving ahead (in the on, on the Saturday evening, the police asked hoteliers to sell room to delegates who had nowhere else to sleep). The press had no kind words for the delegates or the subject matter.

However, the Leeds Convention, as it came to be known, did happen. The organisers booked the Coliseum, where Prime Minister Asquith had spoken in 1908 (see The Molten City) and locals opened their homes to delegates.

The local papers came out against the convention, as did some of the national dailies.

The Leeds Weekly Citizen offered a full account of the proceedings, also detailed in the book British Labour and the Russian Revolution (which was reissued in 2017). In the end, 1500 delegates debated four motions. Some big names appeared, including Ramsay MacDonald, Herbert Morrison, Sylvia Pankhurst and Bertha Quinn, who’d go on to become a Labour councillor in Leeds.

Everything went off peacefully, which was more than something else happening in the city over the same weekend – three nights of anti-Jewish rioting. A little about that in weeks to come, another lesser-known and awful incident in the city’s history.

A curious aside: a writer from Leeds was in Russia during and after it all, and came to known the top people. There were rumours that he might also have been a British Intelligence agent as well as a reporter. His name? Arthur Ransome (yes, Swallows And Amazons).

A Dark Steel Death won’t take you inside the Coliseum for the convention, but it will put you on the dangerous and deadly winter streets of Leeds at the start of 1917.

I’d be very grateful if you’d buy a copy or ask your library to stock it.

A Dark Steel Death And Gledhow Woods

On September 5, 2022September 5, 2022 By chrisnickson2In leeds, tom harper6 Comments

At the weekend we walked in Gledhow Valley Woods. Nothing unusual in that. It’s not far from home, a pleasant stroll along Gipton Beck to the past the bridge that leads to the majestic sweep of the carriage drive and up to the old Gledhow Hall, and finally to the lake.

I know it well. We moved to a place right across from it when I was 11. My path to and from school was through the woods. I walked the dog there. Until I was 18 and moved away, I was in there every day. It was my playground, really.

So what, you think. We all have those.

Here’s where my history and my fiction intertwine. This ground is also where the climax of A Dark Steel Death (officially published tomorrow) happens. During World War I, Gledhow Hall became a Voluntary Aid Detachment hospital, one of many in Leeds treating casualties from the front, and…no, no spoilers.

You’ll have to buy the book or borrow it from the library. But it plays out along the woods and all the way to Gipton Spa and Bath House.

Walking, it’s impossible not to remember things that happened to me there. Being chased through the woods when I was a teenager by a skinhead with an axe. More innocently, my dog Mickey chasing a goose down the long hill to the lake, only to find himself unable to stop in time and belly-flopping into the water.

Winter sledging.

A small dip in the lake myself – just one leg below the knee, but it was enough.

A trail to ride my bike. An open area to play football with myself, and all too often having to climb down into the back to retrieve the ball.

I was lucky, having so much green so close. Back then, I had no idea of the history, or the fact that that road along the bottom of the valley was less than 50 years old. It was simply the woods.

Now, I know so much more about the history. The stone bridge near the top of the hill known as Little Switzerland makes for a thin road.

But it was constructed for one man – Jeremiah Dixon, who owned Gledhow Hall. You can see his initials and the date carved into the bridge.

Like so much around Leeds, the land had once belong to Kirkstall Abbey, but with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it was sold into private hands. Dixon bought the hall in 1763 or 4 and had the bridge built five years later (the date is carved in the sone) to connect his house to his pleasure gardens and ice house on the other side of Gledhow Lane. A later owner, James Kitson, would commission the breathtaking bathroom of hand-painted Burmantofts faience tile (this image doesn’t do it justice).

Early in the 1800s, Turner painted the hall, the lake and some of the grounds from the other side of the valley, giving the scene a sweetness and romance that captures some of the sweep. One hundred years later, Tom Harper would be pursuing a killer through there, the ground neglected and overgrown.

Several decades after that, I’d be watching my dog desperately try to stop himself tumbling into the water. Fast-forward even further and we’d be walking along, watching the ducks in the lake.

Time past and time passing, as a Yorkshire songwriter once sang.

Oh, and please don’t forget to buy your copy of A Dark Steel Death, please. Independent bookshops need your business. But this place has the cheapest price and free postage. Thank you.

A Few More Days…And Some Deals

On August 31, 2022 By chrisnickson2In gods of gold, leeds, richard nottingham, the broken token, tom harperLeave a comment

It’s just a few days until A Dark Steel Death is officially published, and I have to say, I’ve been overwhelmed by the early reviews. It’s the kind of thing a writer always hopes for, but rarely manages.

I hope you won’t mind if I quote from them. It’s the kind of ego boost I need sometimes when I wonder why I’m sitting and typing words for a new books.

Publishers Weekly called it “superior” in a starred review noting that “Nickson does his usual superb job of evoking the period and balancing his lead’s professional challenges with personal ones. This entry reinforces his place in the front rank of historical mystery authors.”

If only…

The Go Buy The Book blog greatly enjoyed it, noting “the research is spot on, taking us back to wartime Leeds and introducing us to some of the real events of the time. Fact and fiction are merged really well, Chris Nickson, once again, delivering an engaging and tense plot where you really don’t know what is going to happen next.”

Booklist calls A Dark Steel Death “the latest in this successful series” and believes “this is a sure bet for the PBS crowd, who love their historical mysteries.”

Kirkus Reviews says it’s a gritty police procedural with well-drawn characters.”

And then there’s Yorkshire Bylines, which has an extensive review that makes me smile. “And that’s the thing with Nickson, he’s so good at telling a story that you don’t really have time to think about it when you start one of his books. You turn to the first page and you’re in, you’re hooked…offers facts wrapped up in fiction so readers don’t even realise they’re learning something. It’s fascinating to have an insight into a familiar place in an unfamiliar time.

Nickson makes the reader care about each character, even the villains, and so many of the issues raised in this book are relevant now, over a hundred years after it was set. It may be a crime thriller but it’s a social commentary too; for example, the reality of the war hero returning home with shell shock…Even when the situation is resolved it feels that it never really will be.

His female characters are strong and standalone, not just accessories to the male characters; from strong, proud Annabelle Harper, his suffragist wife who is struggling with her own health to his brave, sad daughter, Mary.”

Wow, that’s pretty much all I can say.

For those who read on Kindle, Amazon UK currently has it on sale for that. Not that I’d try to nudge you, but…you know.

And a few other UK Kindle deals on my books. My Lottie Armstrong and Chesterfield series are always £2.37, but here are a few more:

The Dead On Leave (one you might not know) is 99p

Free From All Danger is £2.79 (and £2.94 for the hardback)

Leeds, The Biography (short stories) is £3.98

The Leaden Heart is £4.98 (£5.24 for the hardback)

The Broken Token – my first published novel, with Richard Nottingham) is £4.99

Wish me luck for next Tuesday, please. And please, feel free to buy a copy to make sure my publisher will put out the final volume in the series. Or reserve it from your library, so they will buy it, and you can borrow it.

Thank you.

Saying Goodbye To Book Family

On August 3, 2022 By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, tom harper8 Comments

This morning I finished writing the 11^th and final Tom Harper book. It’s a strange feeling to know I’m saying a final farewell to Tom, Annabelle, Mary, Ash and the others. After all, we’ve gone through 30 years together – it takes place in 1920, three decades after Gods of Gold. An awful lot has happened along the way, to Leeds, to the world, and to them. I’ve been their companion for almost a million words.

Curiously, it’s not the first time I’ve written a book with the title Rusted Souls. I completed a version last year, but even as I was working on it, I know Tom deserved to bow out on something better than this. I set it aside and never went back to it, and I know that was the right decision.

This one is the Tom Harper book I was meant to write.

It’s still only a draft. I’m going to allow it to percolate for a few weeks, go back and hopefully make it a better book – probably about the time A Dark Steel Death is officially published (although everyone appears to be selling it already, so do please get your copy or reserve it from your local library). And even then, there’s no guarantee my publisher will want it. Of course, I hope they will, to round things off neatly.

I feel sad to be saying goodbye to people who’ve been such good friends. More than that, they’ve become family. I know them so well, their joys, their sorrows and the pain they have. Strange as it may sound, I feel privileged to have been in their lives.

And please, don’t tell me they’re fictional. I won’t believe you.

My Books, My Rules

On June 29, 2022June 29, 2022 By chrisnickson2In Blog, leeds, richard nottingham, simon westow, the broken token, tom harper2 Comments

It’s about 16 years since I wrote my first published novel, The Broken Token – it took a while to find someone willing to put it out. But for some reason, I’ve remembered that I created a set of rules for myself back then. I’d read plenty of crime novels and I was tired of the loner, heavy drinking detective, and so much that went along with it.

My main character would be married. Most are. Since then, only one of my protagonists hasn’t been married on quickly on the way there. I wasn’t trying to be different, simply to reflect life. And most have had happy marriages, with or without children.

I decided that anyone could die. Again, it was simply life. People die at all ages, for all manner of reasons. Within the business of enforcing the law, there’s always a greater chance of violence. I kept that rule throughout the Richard Nottingham series (and one death brought quite a few variations on “you bastard”). I ditched it for the Tom Harper books, because conditions and life expectancy had improved in a century and a half, although things do happen, like Billy Reed’s heart attack. And the main characters have stayed alive (so far) in the Simon Westow series. I’ll say nothing else about that.

The characters have lives outside their work. We all do, and they’re often more important than anything else. They round out the people, make them human and three-dimensional. Know that and you know them and you’re even more willing to follow them.

The reader has to feel they’ve walked through the place, and experienced that time. All the sighs and smalls and noise. It needs to be alive to be convincing. It’s one reason that most of my books are set in Leeds. It’s the place I feel, that I know through the soles of my shoes. I can sense the different periods of history, like seeing through different layers of time. I can touch them, taste them. All I do is write down that move in my head, including the descriptions of the where and when.

History is important, but it’s more the local than national effect. As we grow into the 20^th century, that changes, but as a rule of thumb it’s true. People cared about what affected them directly. How they lived, conditions of houses, money in their pocket. A writer needs to know their history. But to be convincing, it needs to be worn lightly. Woven into the fabric of the story so it falls gently on a reader’s shoulders. No information dumps.

Create people that readers care about. Even the second character need three dimensions. Cardboard doesn’t work.

I still try to live by all of those. But – and it’s a very big but – there also has to be a good, powerful story that will engage people. That’s at the heart of it all.

I try, but it’s only you, the readers, who can say if I succeed.

To finish, please indulge me while I ask a favour. My most recent novel, The Blood Covenant, has had the types of reviews a writer can only dream about. The one coming in September, which isn’t far away now, is very good, the 10^th Tom Harper novel. Yes, I’d love for you to buy them. Ideally from an independent bookshop, but outlets like Speedy Hen and the Hive in the UK have excellent prices and free postage. Like everyone, though, I know we’re all squeezed and books are a luxury. If you can’t afford it, please order from your local library. If they don’t have it, they will get it in. If every library system in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and NZ ordered copies of both, it would be handsome sales figures. And it would be on the shelves for everyone to read.

Even if you can afford, please consider the library request – that way it’s there for others.

Thank you.

If you have some time to spare – quite a bit of time – I was interviewed for the Working House podcast. You can listen here.

A Dark Steel Death – The Video

On June 15, 2022 By chrisnickson2In leeds, tom harper1 Comment

Leeds, December 5, 1916

The car slid quickly through the streets. Deputy Chief Constable Tom Harper stared out of the window. Leeds was black, a wartime winter-darkness, barely a single thin sliver of light showing through the blackout. A quarter of an hour before, he’d been comfortably asleep in bed, until he was torn out of a dream by the telephone bell. As he hurried to answer, he wondered if it was finally happening: the Zeppelins had come to attack Leeds.

No. This was worse. Far worse.

He could see the fire from half a mile away. Flames licked high into the sky. A moment later he smelled the hard, overwhelming stink of cordite.

‘Duty sergeant, sir.’ He’d had to press the receiver against his good ear to make out the words. The man’s voice was flat, empty of expression. ‘Our officers at Filling Station Number One rang in. There’s been an explosion. A car is on its way for you.’

Filling Station Number One. Everyone around here knew it by a different name – Barnbow.

The book is out everywhere, hardback and e-book, in September. You can pre-order it now.

Tom Harper And A Dark Steel Death

On May 19, 2022 By chrisnickson2In leeds, tom harperLeave a comment

It’s not that long since The Blood Covenant was published, and I still firmly believe e it’s the best book I’ve put out…so far.

But A Dark Steel Death is coming to give it a run for its money in September. It’s the 11^th Tom Harper novel, set in Leeds in 1917, the grimmest days of the Great War.

What’s it about? Sabotage, traitors…perhaps. The story isn’t as straightforward as that. Here’s a short extract from somewhere near the beginning for you to read and whet your appetite.

It’s available to pre-order from all the usual sources, but here is the cheapest, with free UK postage. However, please, do give your business to indies if you can.

Oh, keep scrolling after the extract to see the cover. It’s a cracker.

He was starting to believe that he lived in a world made of paper. It never ended: the correspondence from the War Office, the Home Office, the watch committee, divisional heads . . . the minutes of all the meetings. It was probably all important. But Tom Harper felt as if it had nothing to do with coppering. He’d cleared his desk yesterday, starting the week with good intentions. Now it was Tuesday morning and he knew he’d be buried under another blizzard of paper.

For the last month things had been worse: Chief Constable Parker had been on sick leave with pneumonia. A week in hospital, but now he was recovering. It was a slow process; he wasn’t likely to return before March. And that meant Harper was stuck with two jobs.

He pulled out his watch and opened the cover. Quarter to seven. Hardly light yet outside. With luck, he’d have the next fifteen minutes to himself. It might be all he’d manage in the days that began and ended while it was still dark.

Then the telephone rang.

‘We have trouble, sir.’ Superintendent Ash. His voice was immediately recognizable, even turned hard and metallic on the line.

Harper tensed. ‘Why? What’s happened? Is something wrong at Millgarth?’

‘Not here, sir. It’s the army clothing depot. You remember they took over the old tram sheds and the King’s Mill next door to it back in 1914?’

Harper felt the shiver of fear crawl up his spine.

‘Yes, of course.’ He’d been part of the group invited to tour the buildings before they opened. Ton after ton of garments sorted, inspected and bundled every week before they were sent off to the soldiers. A gigantic operation.

‘Two hours ago, the night watchman was making his final round at the mill.’ Ash paused, considering his words. ‘He thought he heard someone dashing off, then he found a box of matches and some torn-up newspaper in a corner. Came straight outside and reported it to the bobby on guard. His sergeant started the constables searching, then he rang me.’

Christ Almighty, someone starting a fire in a place like that, filled with clothes . . . the place would be an inferno before anyone could stop it.

‘I’ve had men going through the place from top to bottom, sir,’ Ash continued.

‘What have they found?’ He was gripping the instrument so tight that his knuckles had turned white.

‘Nothing, sir. I’ve had them search that other depot on Park Row with a nit comb, too. It’s clean. That’s where I am right now.’

Sabotage. It couldn’t be anything else. The thoughts roared through his head, hammering hard against his skull.

‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’

‘Yes, sir. I haven’t informed the army yet.’

‘Leave that to me,’ Harper promised. ‘I want someone vetting the records of everyone who works in those places,’ Harper said.

‘Walsh is already on it. One of the new detective constables is helping him.’

He thanked God that Walsh was too old to go and fight. Twice he’d tried to join up; both times he’d been turned away at the recruiting station. Just as well; they needed experienced men like him to stay in the force.

His secretary was hanging up her coat as he rushed out.

‘You have Inspector Collins at eight,’ Miss Sharp told him.

‘Tell him I’ll try to be back by nine.’

His mouth was dry and his heart beating a terrified tattoo in his chest as he dashed down Park Row. Another raw winter’s day, coming on dawn, the morning sky pale and mottled with high clouds and a thin north wind. He could have been a businessman hurrying down the street to his office, buried in his overcoat and hat. But he had more important things on his mind than profit and loss. Barnbow last month, and they didn’t know the cause yet. Now this.

Leeds had a saboteur.

And the police needed to stop him.

Ash was waiting outside the warehouse. He was still a big, brawny man, but with the years he’d acquired plenty of padding. His belly jutted under the waistcoat and his neck had grown thick and fleshy. With his white hair and lined face, and the spectacles perched on his nose, he’d come to look like an old, wise man. Time had left its mark on him, but it had on them all. By rights, he and Harper should both have been put out to grass by now. But with so many good men, younger men, gone to war, they were needed. And they were working longer, harder hours than ever before.

‘The army will be here in a moment,’ Harper said, and nodded at the staff car racing along the road.

Brigadier Fox looked too young for his rank, barely forty, but Harper knew he’d earned it, gunned down twice in no man’s land and patched up before going back to the trenches. Now permanently back in England after a third wound left him needing a stick to walk. These days he supervised the garrison at Carlton barracks and was in charge of security at the facilities in Leeds. A war hero and his men loved him for it.

‘Brian,’ Harper said as they shook hands. ‘This is Superintendent Ash. You can trust him with your life. I have.’

A nod and a smile, then Fox’s expression turned grim. ‘What are we going to do about this? We need to discover who’s behind it before he has chance to do any damage.’

‘Increase the patrols every night,’ Ash suggested. ‘Vary the times, so there’s no routine.’

‘Nobody in or out without proper identification,’ Harper added. ‘Search everyone. No matches or cigarette lighters allowed inside.’

The brigadier opened his mouth as if to object, then stopped.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘All sensible. We’ll do that. I’ll post a couple of armed sentries at each of the other places.’ He gave a sad, twisted smile. ‘A rifle and a bayonet can scare people off very effectively.’

The staff car took them to the clothing depot on Swinegate. The building was faceless, anonymous, the stone black with decades of soot. Royal Army Clothing Depot was stencilled across the wide double gates, the letters beginning to fade.

The old watchman, a worried, defensive fellow with patches of white stubble on his cheeks, stared down at his boots as he told his story once again.

A Brand New Tom Harper Novel

On February 16, 2022 By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, tom harper2 Comments

Later this year, there’s a new Tom Harper book coming. It’s called A Dark Steel Death and it’s set during the First World War…

Leeds. December, 1916. Deputy Chief Constable Tom Harper is called out in the middle of the night when a huge explosion rips through a munitions factory supplying war materials, leaving death and destruction in its wake. A month later, matches and paper to start a fire are found in an army clothing depot. It’s a chilling discovery: there’s a saboteur running loose on the streets of Leeds.

As so many give their lives in the trenches, Harper and his men are working harder than ever – and their investigation takes a dark twist with two shootings, at the local steelworks and a hospital. With his back against the wall and the war effort at stake, Harper can’t afford to fail. But can he catch the traitor intent on bringing terror to Leeds?

Would you like a very early look at the cover? Scroll down. But first, I’m going to say with pride that the beautiful Leeds Library, the oldest subscription library in Britain, founded in 1768 (read about it here) has listed their most-borrowed titles of the last 30 years, and The Broken Token is in there at number eight, among some huge names. I honestly feel pretty humble.

And now for the cover of A Dark Steel Death. What do you think? Please, let me know.