Just in case.....you're wondering who created this site, I should introduce myself.
I am Mark Caldicott. I was born and grew up in the West Midlands. I now live in Yorkshire, although I still support West Bromwich Albion. I am the author of a series of crime novels featuring the private investigator Sam Royal. His adventures can be found on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions. |
The Same Only Better
We meet Sam Royal on the hunt for a stolen suitcase. This seemingly mundane (not to say hopeless) task gets more interesting when Sam meets Chief Superintendent Galbraith, head of West Yorkshire's Homicide and Major Enquiry Team. Sam's investigation seems to have revealed a link to an unsolved murder and Galbraith makes an unusual proposition, with the result that Sam eventually finds himself investigating an international conspiracy.
Do Good People Run?
Dan Marsden is a software developer and the brains behind a software project that would make his company and himself a fortune. So why has he vanished?
He and his wife Olwen are known to their friends as ordinary, decent people. But are they as good as they seem? If so, why would they take such pains to disappear without a trace? And why would Dan desert his work colleagues and and turn his back on such riches?
Sam finds himself aided in his quest by a very smart and, in his eyes, very beautiful, Adria Gold. Life for Sam will never be the same again.
Incidentally, Sam discovers that Dan Marsden is a devoted collector of the works of Edwy Searles Brooks, a fact which eventually provides Sam with a crucial clue.
The Other Voice
Moreen Jackson is discovered in a room on the sixth floor of a hotel with only one entrance door to a corridor covered by a CCTV camera. In the room is the brutally-murdered body of her husband. The jury agree that it would be impossible for any other person to have killed him and she is convicted of his murder.
Sam's friend, Martin Sutcliffe, whose TV programme investigates possible miscarriages of justice, hires Sam to take a preliminary look at the case. Sam, on meeting Moreen, can't believe she is guilty.
But if she is innocent he has to find the solution to an impossible crime, and also pinpoint the real murderer.
Can you, the reader, find the answer to this locked room mystery before Sam does, and if so can you then work out whodunit?
Evidence of Deceit
Grace Rowlands is convinced her dead husband, Ronnie, a successful antiques dealer, was not having an affair, despite having hard evidence that he was. She hires Sam Royal to track down the other woman in search of an explanation.
Soon his investigation uncovers Ronnie Rowlands’ innovative approach to the antiques business, together with a couple of mysteries.
For a start, there is the strange provenance of the chairs sold to a footballer. More disturbing is the unsaleable Victorian furniture bought at a highly inflated price from Richard Vaughan, a prominent MP. An MP who, only weeks later, died during a kinky sex act.
His search takes him to Dublin and to Boston, yet as more discoveries are made, he seems to be dropping his client deeper into the mire. But trust Sam to work through to a solution, and it’s one you won’t see coming.
The Murder at Hebden Bridge
When Sam Royal’s latest client asks him to investigate the murder of his aunt, Sam knows the last thing he can do is get involved in an ongoing police investigation. Until, that is, his friend Chief Superintendent Galbraith asks him to do just that...
D I Charlie Govan knows who is responsible for the murder but she can’t prove it and the investigation has stalled. In an attempt to avoid referring for a review and to save Charlie’s career, Galbraith asks for Sam’s help.
For Charlie, Cynthia was just an innocent victim, a harmless woman leading a simple life. Sam, braving Charlie’s disdain, decides to look into Cynthia’s life and soon finds an intriguing link to the Cragg Valley Coiners, a group of eighteenth century counterfeiters.
Despite Charlie’s cynical dismissal of his efforts, Sam pursues his own line of investigation - but will he finally justify Galbraith’s faith in him and help her close the case?
About the author
After leaving grammar school with only four O Levels I worked in the Inland Revenue for ten years, but my real ambition was to be a professional musician. And so, during this time, I played bass in a jazz trio. .If getting repeat bookings and having full diaries is a measure of success, we were successful and I earned more in a week playing with the trio than as a tax clerk. In terms of groupies, gratuitous sex, record contracts and a fan following maybe not so successful.
When the group disbanded I decided to leave the tax office and study for a degree in Sociology. On graduation, I moved to Leeds to research for a PhD study of the German philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel under the supervision of the eminent Professor Zygmunt Bauman.
At the end of the research, rather than pursuing an academic career, I opted for a real world job and became a personnel manager and later a human resources director in the NHS.
.
We meet Sam Royal on the hunt for a stolen suitcase. This seemingly mundane (not to say hopeless) task gets more interesting when Sam meets Chief Superintendent Galbraith, head of West Yorkshire's Homicide and Major Enquiry Team. Sam's investigation seems to have revealed a link to an unsolved murder and Galbraith makes an unusual proposition, with the result that Sam eventually finds himself investigating an international conspiracy.
Do Good People Run?
Dan Marsden is a software developer and the brains behind a software project that would make his company and himself a fortune. So why has he vanished?
He and his wife Olwen are known to their friends as ordinary, decent people. But are they as good as they seem? If so, why would they take such pains to disappear without a trace? And why would Dan desert his work colleagues and and turn his back on such riches?
Sam finds himself aided in his quest by a very smart and, in his eyes, very beautiful, Adria Gold. Life for Sam will never be the same again.
Incidentally, Sam discovers that Dan Marsden is a devoted collector of the works of Edwy Searles Brooks, a fact which eventually provides Sam with a crucial clue.
The Other Voice
Moreen Jackson is discovered in a room on the sixth floor of a hotel with only one entrance door to a corridor covered by a CCTV camera. In the room is the brutally-murdered body of her husband. The jury agree that it would be impossible for any other person to have killed him and she is convicted of his murder.
Sam's friend, Martin Sutcliffe, whose TV programme investigates possible miscarriages of justice, hires Sam to take a preliminary look at the case. Sam, on meeting Moreen, can't believe she is guilty.
But if she is innocent he has to find the solution to an impossible crime, and also pinpoint the real murderer.
Can you, the reader, find the answer to this locked room mystery before Sam does, and if so can you then work out whodunit?
Evidence of Deceit
Grace Rowlands is convinced her dead husband, Ronnie, a successful antiques dealer, was not having an affair, despite having hard evidence that he was. She hires Sam Royal to track down the other woman in search of an explanation.
Soon his investigation uncovers Ronnie Rowlands’ innovative approach to the antiques business, together with a couple of mysteries.
For a start, there is the strange provenance of the chairs sold to a footballer. More disturbing is the unsaleable Victorian furniture bought at a highly inflated price from Richard Vaughan, a prominent MP. An MP who, only weeks later, died during a kinky sex act.
His search takes him to Dublin and to Boston, yet as more discoveries are made, he seems to be dropping his client deeper into the mire. But trust Sam to work through to a solution, and it’s one you won’t see coming.
The Murder at Hebden Bridge
When Sam Royal’s latest client asks him to investigate the murder of his aunt, Sam knows the last thing he can do is get involved in an ongoing police investigation. Until, that is, his friend Chief Superintendent Galbraith asks him to do just that...
D I Charlie Govan knows who is responsible for the murder but she can’t prove it and the investigation has stalled. In an attempt to avoid referring for a review and to save Charlie’s career, Galbraith asks for Sam’s help.
For Charlie, Cynthia was just an innocent victim, a harmless woman leading a simple life. Sam, braving Charlie’s disdain, decides to look into Cynthia’s life and soon finds an intriguing link to the Cragg Valley Coiners, a group of eighteenth century counterfeiters.
Despite Charlie’s cynical dismissal of his efforts, Sam pursues his own line of investigation - but will he finally justify Galbraith’s faith in him and help her close the case?
About the author
After leaving grammar school with only four O Levels I worked in the Inland Revenue for ten years, but my real ambition was to be a professional musician. And so, during this time, I played bass in a jazz trio. .If getting repeat bookings and having full diaries is a measure of success, we were successful and I earned more in a week playing with the trio than as a tax clerk. In terms of groupies, gratuitous sex, record contracts and a fan following maybe not so successful.
When the group disbanded I decided to leave the tax office and study for a degree in Sociology. On graduation, I moved to Leeds to research for a PhD study of the German philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel under the supervision of the eminent Professor Zygmunt Bauman.
At the end of the research, rather than pursuing an academic career, I opted for a real world job and became a personnel manager and later a human resources director in the NHS.
.