Last Updated: 13 May 2008

Welcome to my website.  Please take a look around and read the free samples.

Birth of a Legend is the story of the first fifteen months of the unit known as L Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade, the forerunner of today's SAS: On 4 June 1940, the last day of the Dunkirk evacuation, Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clarke drafted a short memorandum on guerrilla warfare. Ninety-six hours later Winston Churchill created section M.O.9. of the War Office, and Clarke was instructed to launch the first raid as soon as possible. The new units took their name from the Boer kommandos, and were raised from volunteers in a matter of days. It was a decision, writes Rafe McGregor, that ultimately led to the formation of one of the most famous regiments in the British Army...

Sherlock Holmes for Beginners is an introduction to the Great Detective for newcomers, and currently featured on Tangled Web UK Crimescene:  Sherlock Holmes is an international icon, as much a part of popular culture as Dracula and James Bond – perhaps more so, as to date he has been portrayed by seventy-five actors in two hundred and eleven films, more than any other character real or imagined... 

Sherlock Holmes: The Game's Afoot has been reviewed by Martin Edwards on Tangled Web UK: "What the world needs now is love, sweet love, or so the song goes. Does it really need any more Sherlock Holmes pastiches? Nobody can out-do the originals by Conan Doyle and there have been countless attempts to follow in his footsteps, for over a century. Well, in my opinion, the answer to the question is yes. Even if Sir Arthur’s masterpieces are unsurpassable, there is pleasure to be gained from writing and reading Holmes pastiches, and I enjoy doing both. Here we have a collection edited by a leading Sherlockian, who is also a novelist and playwright. Davies is the author of ‘The Adventure of the Whitrow Inheritance’, which is the shortest story in the book, but it is a neatly wrought tale, and a good example of what can be done with such an enticing detective as Holmes, even when writing economically. The other contributors include eminent figures such as June Thomson (author of some of the finest Holmes pastiches ever written, as well as a biography of Holmes and Watson), and experienced Sherlockians like John Hall. But it is the presence in this book of stories by younger writers such as Rafe McGregor, Matthew Booth and M.J. Elliott, that is the best evidence of the timeless appeal of Sherlock. Each generation falls in love with him, and there is no sign that this will cease in the foreseeable future."  There's more information in Pastiche.