In 2022, I put up instalments of my novel Mud Pie and Chips on my website. That novel now sits within “The Helen Investigations” series. There are presently four novels in the series, all of which are police procedurals with a difference.

All my novels relate to a fictional writer, Helen. These crime novels are no different.

Helen Linton-House was a bright child who has developed into an intellectually astute student. She is an introvert with a strong intuition and increasingly sharp observational and analytical skills.

I have called the series “The Helen Investigations” because Helen investigates crimes, but she also investigates what it means to be herself and what she wants to do with her life. This means that the novels are as much about Helen as they are about the police solving the crimes.

Each is set during a year in Helen’s life (when she is eight, seventeen and twenty-two). Her involvement with the police is appropriate to her age and cognitive development. She is exploring her sense of identity (milestones, rites of passage, love, independence, etc.) when the various crimes capture her imagination and interrupt her life.

Although Detective Inspectors in each situation suggest she might like to join the police force, it is possible that Helen missed her vocation as a detective. Instead, she has become a successful writer.

In all my novels, the reader is introduced to examples from Helen’s creative journey, with short stories and poetry that she has written throughout her life. This is part of what makes “The Helen Investigations” police procedurals plus!

The novels narrate major crimes against women, and understanding what is happening is part of Helen investigating her place in the world.

I am currently querying agents and submitting to publishers. Until then, the titles of Books two, three and four remain a secret!