The Sam Dyke Box Set Book 1

"Sam Dyke, a modern, British Marlowe"

This anthology includes the first four books in a series that has been called "terrific" and "difficult to put down". It also includes the first chapter of the fifth book, The Strange Girl.

So who is Sam Dyke?

He's a private investigator from a working-class background whose job forces him to mix with the wealthy and privileged of the posh Cheshire set - those whose morals and behaviour offend him and go against his own values, forged in a strong family environment. The mysteries he unravels become personal crusades against entitlement, wealth and the abuse of power. He doesn't preach but he gets angry when he sees people who lie, steal and murder to get their way. Like Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade he has a clear view of what the world is actually like and he wants evil-doers set straight: what's more, he'll do what's necessary to make that happen.

Altered Life (Book 1)

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.

The Private Lie (Book 2)

Sam is asked by his long-lost son to find his girlfriend, Kelly, who has disappeared. 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. So he's 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.

The Hard Swim (Book 3)

Sam becomes involved in unravelling a mystery that dates back to the Second World War. While concluding another case, he rescues a woman who is on the point of being abducted and, for all he knows, murdered. He helps the woman, Chantal Bressette, escape, subsequently learning that she's carrying a document that has importance to a group of powerful people.

It's a coded diary written by a French Resistance fighter in WWII, but also contains information implicating the British Government in a terrible crime. Now someone has let loose a team of ex-army killers to recover the information before it can be made public.

Sam Dyke is the only person who can stop them.

The Bleak (Book 4)

For Sam, taking this particular case is not promising. His client is a secretary who's watching her boss fall apart, and she can't bear it. The case requires subtlety and finesse and so isn't his usual kind of job. But he likes her and takes it anyway.

And he soon discovers that it's not the pressures of work that are getting to her boss. It's his colleagues, a group of cultish scientists. Their leader is a hyper-intelligent seer/visionary who has a personal philosophy that is taking him towards one final act - to produce a calamitous event that will destroy the lives of hundreds of people. Or more.


Genre: Mystery