Books

Julie Trax Down is the fifth of the "Spence Hargreaves" stories. The first four were "Malicious Obsession", "Delusions of Grandeur", "The Evil of Virtue" and "Patient Vengeance". The earlier stories are set in the early 2010s. Julie Trax Down takes Spence back to his early days as a novice DC in the mid-1980s.

It is mid-1985. It is the time of "Live Aid", the Miners' Strike, Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, AIDS, growing racial tensions, Mikhail Gorbachev. "Spence" Hargreaves has been posted to Swindon CID, his home town. DI Reg Tucker takes a liking to the young DC and brings him onboard immediately in the investigation of the gruesome murder of a young, pregnant woman. Over the following weeks and months, a series of seemingly unrelated criminal acts follow, ranging from animal mistreatment to vandalism to worse. The victims of these crimes or their families continue to be targeted in a variety of strange, increasingly violent and at time macabre ways. Failure to achieve any success in solving the crimes bring down on DI Tucker and his team the wrath of a media baying for blood, the Chief Constable and an ambitious Superintendent. Is there a common link between the disparate crimes? Who could be behind them? Can a result be achieved before the perpetrator or perpetrators threaten true mayhem? Julie Trax Down will keep the reader asking questions as "young Spence" battles with his first major test as a green Detective Constable.

Price $4.99

Order on paypal: @kenwebb1978

(will soon be appearing on Amazon)

His name is Winston Leonard Spencer Hargreaves, but Detective Inspector Hargreaves of Wiltshire Police is ‘Spence’, even to the Chief Constable. Spence loves his daughter, his work and his solitude. For decades he had worshipped the god of the blues and prayed in the church of St Eric of Clapton the divine. However, his world is rocked by the murder of a local school Deputy Headmaster. Is it sex, professional jealousy, is it the vengeance of a wronged wife, a gay lover spurned or nothing more than a random attack or robbery gone wrong? Spence and his meticulous DS Nigel Ferguson are soon relishing the complexities of another case. But this time they are facing things even Spence had never experienced. Soon the investigation will lead Spence and his team into a strange world of obsession, fantasy and fetish whose tentacles spread far and wide across southern England…

“Malicious Obsession” is the first of A L Masters’ “Spence Hargreaves” stories. Once you have tasted one, you will be demanding the next and the next…

Price $4.99

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Also available on Amazon as a paperback and kindle

Spence Hargreaves has been luxuriating in a local blues festival, held in wintry Malmesbury. It is not quite his god, Eric, but it was pretty good. But then his world is turned upside down as he and his Superintendent receive a bizarre communication. Follow Spence Hargreaves and his team as they are hurled into their latest investigation. ‘Spence’ finds himself drawn into the deluded world of a serial-killer, and this time things get very personal. Will Spence and his team be able to unravel the sick world into which they have been thrust? As things deteriorate, it seems that only disaster looms as a media frenzy threatens to jeapordise the investigation while the killer teases and plays with Spence’s mind.

“Delusions of Grandeur” is the second of the “Spence Hargreaves” stories, following on from “Malicious Obsession”. You’ll be wanting more…

Price $4.99

Order on paypal: @kenwebb1978

Also available on Amazon as a paperback and kindle

Everything is separate, is unrelated, we are all living our own separate lives. Or are we? Is there a thread linking randomness together as in a six degrees of separation world or is that just a myth? Spence Hargreaves, Swindon’s highly experienced and feted leading officer, is to be sorely tested. And not only do he and his team have cases to unravel but they will also be pushed to the extremes as they attempt to set their own moral compass. “The Evil of Virtue” is the third “Spence Hargreaves” story that takes readers into a world, not only where they are trying to outsmart DI Hargreaves but where they are themselves questioned about what they believe. Is there such a thing as evil? Is there such a thing as virtue? “The Evil of Virtue” is an edge of the seat crime drama that will keep the reader turning those pages.

Price $4.99

Order on paypal: @kenwebb1978

Also available on Amazon as a paperback and kindle

The 2012 London Olympic Games are coming up and the country is in a state of excitement. The mood in the country is positive and hard times are forgotten, if just for a short time. But a young woman is reported missing. And then a dismembered woman’s body is discovered at an ancient historical site. Or is it? Another young woman is reported missing. Another body is found floating in the Thames. Or is it? Spence Hargreaves and his team find themselves hurled into an investigation that stretches from the Wiltshire countryside to London to East Anglia to Australia. What brings things together? Is the past the past and the present the present? Or can past and present never be separated? Is vengeance ever just? Is it true that we reap what we sow? As the reader ponders such issues, Spence and his team struggle to understand the reason why? And then how to unravel the threads. “Patient Vengeance” will keep the reader guessing, never sure of what to believe until… or if ever…

Price $4.99

Order on paypal: @kenwebb1978

Also available on Amazon as a paperback and kindle