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Immerse yourself in the world of crime fiction novels – written by author Rick Lee!
Author & Writer
Here’s what Rick has to say about writing…
I still don’t know where my next story is going to go, but I trust the characters and listen to what they would do next. I’ve never suffered from ‘writer’s block – I can’t imagine that!
I don’t jot things down very often, tending to rely on my memory, but I do recall things from my past and include them.
I often wake up and know what happens next or what’s ‘wrong’ with something I’ve already written or recognise something I need to explain or justify.
Every writing website will tell you that being a reader is an essential pre-requisite to becoming a writer.
I have been an avid reader of the Crime Thriller genre since I was a teenager, particularly Ian Rankin, Donna Leon, Susan Hill, Denise Mena, Val McDermid, Henning Mankell, CJ Sansom, Christopher Brookmyre, PD James, Martin Cruz Smith and first and foremost, Georges Simenon.
However, my reading is much wider than that and I’m very influenced by: Kate Atkinson, Maggie O’Farrell and Michel Bussi’s magical playing about with POV, Ian McEwan’s elemental tension building.
Get your hands on one of my books and you’ll experience the thrill and keeping you on the edge of your seat while reading them. You can contact me for more information on each book too.
Browse My Range Of Books
A Man In Flames
FEBRUARY 1979
An ex-soldier is intent on vengeance but on a scale which is beyond anyone’s worst nightmare.
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DI Mick Fletcher is intent on getting back to London and escaping the rain sodden hell of Rochdale to which he’s been assigned.
Only recently he was sure a successful murder investigation would be his ticket back down south, but the case fell apart, when the suspect reveals an irrefutable – but very attractive – alibi.
A love affair blossoms, but is it doomed before it can flourish?
What game is his new sergeant, Sadie Swift, playing?
As the tension rises, Fletcher finds himself more and more at the edge – struggling to hang onto his job, his love . . . even his life.
Daughter of the Rose
FEBRUARY 1980
DI Mick Fletcher has been sent even further north to Penrith after his unacceptable behaviour in West Yorkshire.
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And even before this investigation has hardly begun, he’s reassigned to investigate the kidnapping of a young student.
Eleanor de Camville, Ellie, is a witness to this kidnap and inevitably involves her ‘not grandfather’, ex-DI Mick Fletcher in the search for the girl.
And what has any of this to do with a fourteenth-century tract, ‘A Pricke of Conscience’, which she is obsessed by, which foretells the end of the world?
In fifteen days?
A Ripple of Lies
JUNE 1981
A young girl is on the run after assaulting a teacher.
An Italian ‘businessman’ and his bodyguards are killed in a violent shoot-out.
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Meanwhile DI Mick Fletcher is surprised to be invited to a society wedding only to find out it’s a cover for Special Branch to send him to Barrow-in-Furness – the ‘longest cul-de-sac in the world’.
A new submarine is to be launched there on the 1st of July and undercover contacts have got wind that a terrorist attack is planned.
Fletcher insists on taking newly promoted DS Irene Garner along for the ride – but neither of them is ready for the mayhem which spirals out of their control as the day of the launch approaches.
Too many players in a never-ending game of blind man’s bluff which reaches an unexpected and shocking conclusion.
Some Dance To Forget
OCTOBER 1981
DI Mick Fletcher and DS Irene Garner are once again on the track of the ‘Snow White Killer’ – a woman who kills ‘wicked stepmothers’.
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There have been no victims for over a year, but now two in quick succession. Except the second body maybe isn’t one of hers.
Is it a copycat killer instead?
Colin Lockwood returns to the down-at-heel seaside town where he was born and grew up: an idyllic childhood memory, which is about to be shattered by the revelations which will shock and horrify the whole community.
One wedding leads to a lot of funerals as the secrets of a bunch of 60s teenagers are uncovered by a series of horrific murders.
A killer desperately trying to prevent the truth from coming to light.
A truth which is preserved in black and white images of unimaginable sexual depravity.
This story had me hooked from the start and I loved the cleverly interwoven plotlines from previous stories to add more detail to previously encountered characters both villain and hero.
The Rain It Never Stops
MAY 1982
DI Mick Fletcher couldn’t deny that he prefers the company of women – but falling for a girl half his age?
What’s the matter with him?
And that’s not all. He’s been sent to the Wild West . . . of Cumbria.
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Two bodies are found at the bottom of a Lakeland crag and an old lady lies dead in her bed.
Accidents or something more sinister?
And what’s any of this to do with the Falklands War?
Within days the cases are closed and inquests hastily arranged.
But the girl’s dark eyes lure him in to a bewildering labyrinth of secrets and lies, only one step ahead of people who will do anything to ensure no-one finds out what happened one night in May – a decisive moment in the Falklands War and the premiership of Margaret Thatcher.
Voices In The Darkness
OCTOBER 2014
A teenage girl is missing.
Eleanor Rawlins is an unworldly loner, who would rather be climbing than fingering a smart phone.
A teacher is found dead in the woods. Is it suicide or murder?
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It’s too late for DI Irene Nicholson – retirement is due. But she can’t let go. She revives her old partnership with ex-DI Fletcher to uncertainly follow the flimsiest of tenuous clues, driven only by their sceptical curiosity and the haunting premonition of another teenager.
‘I’ve seen it . . .
there are big hills on either side.
It’s cold.
Blue sky.
Eagles floating high up.
There’s a lake.
The wind is blowing.
The girl is walking towards you. She’s not well . . . something terrible has happened
. . . her eyes are . . .’
Terrible crimes were committed in the 1980s . . . by people in positions of trust and authority.
How much longer can they be kept secret?
Those Who Cannot Die
OCTOBER 2015
Retired detective Mick Fletcher discovers he’s been a father – for the last thirty five years!
His son, Christian, is a detective currently involved in trying to bring tax evaders to justice, but they are both dragged back into Fletcher’s past to revisit previous investigations in which he was thwarted yet again by the machinations of politicians and Special Branch.
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Catlin Beck is trying to escape her mother’s nightmares only to find herself drawn back to the same events in the company of less than honest companions.
The past doesn’t always go away.
Sometimes it catches up with you.
Some people can’t forget.
They realise they need to stop running and face their demons.
And sometimes the desire to live no matter what is stronger than anything else.
Not wanting to live forever . . . but driven by an anger that won’t let you die.
‘This is a truly intriguing book with numerous twists and turns. It keeps you guessing right through and the way the separate threads draw together in the back end is great. Highly recommended.’
Blackthorns Of Their Own
OCTOBER 2016- OCTOBER 2017
What if a serial killer, who so far has avoided detection and hasn’t killed anyone since 1981, was to start again? Why?
Would being over seventy years old be a handicap?
Ex-DI Fletcher is now long time retired, so he has to allow the official investigators to do most of the work . . . whilst, of course, being unable to keep his nose out. Especially as he feels this is definitely still ‘his case’!
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Ex-DI Irene Garner agrees to tag along against her better instincts . . . but everyone’s efforts come to nothing, as the ‘Snow White Killer’ manages to be as elusive as ever.
Meanwhile a middle aged woman has to come to terms with finding out she was an adopted child . . . and that her real mother may have done far worse things than abandon her.
Against the backdrop of the Brexit referendum and the ensuing fall out, lots of people have to come to terms with life changing events.
PUBLISHED JULY 2018
The Lies Will Haunt Us
Apparently there was less crime during lockdown?
Or was it just ignored?
Can anyone stop the double disaster of a Tory government dragging the blinkered English through a Brexit hedge into a wilderness of broken dreams?
Will one liar’s death change anything?
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Or will it pave the way for a brutal authoritarian regime?
And can you trust a woman with dragon tattoos?
And does anyone still believe in fairies?
A Rain of Blood
2020
Ex-DI Mick Fletcher is breaking lockdown rules again to meet up with his favourite granddaughter, Eleanor, who is determined to figure out what the disparate connections mean.
Meanwhile, DI Magda Steil is presented with a different sort of problem.
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A message with map coordinates designates where a body is buried in the woods – a girl who disappeared seven years ago.
A Prick of Conscience
Why would someone kill an old man amidst the squalor of his basement flat in one of the most expensive residential neighbourhoods in Edinburgh, yet not take any of the valuable paintings and rich baubles he was surrounded by?
Newly assigned Detective Inspector Walker raises a lot of eyebrows, but then he’s used to the prejudice regarding the colour of his skin and knows this is a deliberate high-level policy decision, which he’s still not sure he’s happy with.
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And even before this investigation has hardly begun, he’s reassigned to investigate the kidnapping of a young student.
Eleanor de Camville, Ellie, is a witness to this kidnap and inevitably involves her ‘not grandfather’, ex-DI Mick Fletcher in the search for the girl.
And what has any of this to do with a fourteenth-century tract, ‘A Pricke of Conscience’, which she is obsessed by, which foretells the end of the world?
In fifteen days?
A Girl Called Maria
A bizarre tableau portraying the Russian royal family and a real dead body are found by some children exploring an abandoned mansion.
DI Walker and DS Gill were hoping to go back to Edinburgh but are told to stay and deal with this latest case in the Borders.
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Inevitably, this comes to the attention of Ellie de Camville, who’s now finished her degree course in Edinburgh and undecided what she should do next, so amateur sleuthing seems by far the most interesting activity.
The puzzle gets more complicated when the daughter of the dead man is kidnapped and disappears.
A Susurration Of Ghosts
Do you believe in ghosts?
Troubled souls, people who died violently and want vengeance or lovers looking for their lost ones.
There is one such soul waking up from a four-hundred-year incarceration, who sets off on a trail of retribution, not knowing how things have changed.
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The Walls at Berwick on Tweed are still there.
And some men who only care about money and treat women as possessions.
And revenge is still a wild justice.