Phil Lecomber – författare

Editor Martin Edwards has commissioned an entertaining range of stories from the membership of the world's most celebrated group of crime and mystery writers, the Crime Writers' Association (CWA). Founded over 70 years ago by John Creasey, the Crime Writers’ Association supports, promotes and celebrates this most durable, adaptable and successful of genres, while supporting writers of every kind of crime fiction and non-fiction. In this new collection, enjoy 23 original, thrilling mysteries packed full of enthralling characters, drama and intrigue, by the following authors: Martine Bailey, Christine Poulson, Dea Parkin, Martin Edwards, C.J. Carver, Kate Ellis, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Phil Lecomber, L.C. Tyler, Glenda Young, Antony Johnston, Simon Dinsdale, Renita D’Silva, Paul Gitsham, Yvonne Eve Walus, Brian Price, Pam Plumb, Nick Guthrie, Margaret Holbrook, Andy Sykes, Cath Staincliffe, Roland Moore and Rachel Amphlett.The Flame Tree Beyond and Within short story collections bring together tales of myth and imagination by modern and contemporary writers, carefully selected by anthologists, and sometimes featuring short stories from a single author. Overall, the series presents a wide range of diverse and inclusive voices with myth, folkloric-inflected short fiction, and an emphasis on the supernatural, science fiction, the mysterious and the speculative. The books themselves are gorgeous, with foiled covers, printed edges and published only in hardcover editions, offering a lifetime of reading pleasure.

Finalist for the 2026 Shamus Award for Best Original Paperback PI Novel!A pacy, evocative dark historical thriller about a working-class private detective in 1920s London’s Soho, who has grown up alongside the morally dubious characters who are key to cracking the cases he investigates, for fans of Dominic Nolan and Laura Shepherd Robinson.When Cockney private detective George Harley saves a young girl’s life on a dark London night in 1929, he doesn’t realise it marks the beginning of an investigation which will change his life forever. The incendiary novel which inspired the girl’s abduction also seems to be linked to a series of grisly murders that are taking place on Harley’s patch, and though he’s delighted to be asked by Scotland Yard to help find the killer before they strike again, he could do without the local razor- and cosh-wielding mobsters thinking he’s a police informant.Set during the Golden Age of Crime Fiction, Harley’s world is a far cry from the country house of an Agatha Christie whodunnit. This working-class sleuth does his ‘sherlocking’ in the frowzy alleyways and sleazy nightclubs of Soho – the city’s underbelly – peopled with lowlife ponces, jaded streetwalkers, and Jewish and Maltese gangsters: a world of grubby bedsits, all-night cafés, egg and chips, and Gold Flake cigarettes.Here, the midnight streets are black as pitch and, as Harley finds himself embroiled in the macabre mysteries of a city in which truth is as murky as the pea-souper smog, he begins to realise he may never find a way out.

A pacy, evocative dark historical thriller about a working-class private detective in 1920s London''s Soho, who has grown up alongside the morally dubious characters who are key to cracking the cases he investigates, for fans of Laura Shepherd Robinson and the TV series Peaky Blinders.When Cockney private detective George Harley saves a young girl''s life on a dark London night in 1929, he doesn''t realise it marks the beginning of an investigation which will change his life forever. The incendiary book which inspired the girl''s abduction also seems to be linked to a series of grisly murders that are taking place on Harley''s patch, and though he''s delighted to be asked by Scotland Yard to help find the killer before they strike again, he could do without the local razor- and cosh-wielding mobsters thinking he''s in the police''s pocket.Set during the Golden Age of Crime Fiction, Harley''s world is a far cry from the country house of an Agatha Christie whodunnit. This working-class sleuth does his ''sherlocking'' in the frowsy alleyways and sleazy nightclubs of Soho – the city''s underbelly – peopled with lowlife ponces, jaded streetwalkers, and Jewish and Maltese gangsters: a world of grubby bedsits, all-night cafés, egg and chips, and Gold Flake cigarettes.Here, the midnight streets are black as pitch and, as Harley finds himself embroiled in the macabre mysteries of a city in which truth is as murky as the pea-souper smog and the sins are as dark as stout porter beer, he begins to realise he may never find a way out.

The second novel in the Piccadilly Noir series, this dark historical thriller sees Cockney private eye George Harley return to the streets of London's Soho, populated by gangsters, wide-boys and lowlifes, to investigate a missing cabaret dancer. For fans of Dominic Nolan and Laura Shepherd Robinson.Four years after bringing the infamous child-killer known as the 'Nursery Butcher' to justice - and still haunted by the brutal vengeance exacted by the psychopath's ruthless allies - Cockney private eye George Harley is finally back in business, operating a new detective agency in the heart of London's Soho. Harley and his new assistant Bunty are presented with their first case when a distressed father engages them to investigate the disappearance of his daughter, who has run away from home to join a cabaret troupe led by the notorious 'Queen of Depravity' Ilse Blau, now in London after being driven out by the Nazis from Weimar-era Berlin.But in Harley's liminal world, things are never straightforward, and the detective soon finds himself embroiled in another pitch-dark scenario, with London's decadent, thrill-seeking gentry on one side and West End mobsters and wide-boys in search of easy cash on the other. When he discovers that a six-year-old has been kidnapped from an orphanage, Harley is convinced his old nemesis has somehow broken out of the lunatic asylum and is back on the streets of London, up to his old tricks.Set in 1933 and following on from the events of Midnight Streets, this second instalment in the Piccadilly Noir series sees George Harley return to the frowzy alleyways and sleazy nightclubs of the UK capital in search of answers - no matter how uncomfortable they might turn out to be. But when he becomes ensnared in the mind games of a wily femme fatale, and finds himself up against ruthless Glaswegian gangsters, well-connected occultists, and undercover SS agents, those answers become increasingly hard to find.