Author - Avril Field-Taylor

The A63 Revisited

Waterstones in Hull are extremely supportive of Hull & East Riding writers, and carry a stock of many of the books mentioned on this site.

Click on picture to go to Avril's site

Avril Field-Taylor (crime writer)

Sample some of Avril's short stories here (by clicking on the titles below):

Avril Field-Taylor started writing when she was seven. The first story she can remember had a villain dressed up as the devil to frighten the villagers away and included her faithful Labrador dog. The dog set a pattern for life and all her stories ever since have dogs snuck in there somewhere, mostly Golden Retrievers or, as in her current Tudor detective story, greyhound/springer spaniel mixes called Greysprings. Her speciality is the crime story because she likes the puzzle, the more convoluted and distorted the better. She thinks that she may have a Houdini complex - she revels in setting herself plot twists she has to find some way out of.

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'Dearly Ransomed Soul'

to read our review, click here.
to read an extract, click here.
to view introductory video, click here.

It is the annual music festival in the Peak District town of Temingham. Jobbing soprano, Georgia Pattison, specialist in Elizabethan and early music is standing in for a sick colleague. Backstage in the cathedral, she finds the partly-burned body of arrogant prima-donna, Ariana Staithes. But burning was not the cause of death...

Georgia agrees to go undercover to help Superintendent Michaela Hamilton, not realising that she is putting her own life on the line. Then Georgia's new love is attacked and left for dead. What did he know?

Suspects abound. Blackmail victims, jilted lovers, jealous wives, Ariana's betrayed husband. Georgia can discern no pattern in the conflicting clues. All this and she has to sing Vivaldi, too...

The final pieces of the jigsaw fall into place, but there is no proof. Can Georgia unmask the killer by setting a trap with herself as the bait?

A good, pacey whodunnit in the best English tradition....with larger-than-life characters and a great sense of place. Georgia Pattison is funny, feisty, gobby and also an excellent sleuth. The plot twists like a pole-dancing python, never flagging on its way to the unexpected denouement....and through it all runs a deep and knowlegeable seam of musicality that lifts "Dearly Ransomed Soul" out of the ordinary and into a higher realm. More Georgia, please, and soon!

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'Murder At Oakwood Grange'

A Sherlock Holmes adventure based on the unwritten story of the politician, the lighthouse and the trained cormorant.

to read our review, click here.
to read an extract, click here.

Why is the seemingly trivial problem of Celia Applegarth taking up so much of Sherlock Holmes’s time? It is almost too late when Holmes realises he is being misdirected. There is only one villain clever enough to do that. What is the evil Professor Moriarty up to this time?

When Holmes manages to foil Moriarty’s plot, the professor is out for revenge. In a chase from London to the factory of Reckitt & Sons in Hull and back again, Holmes at last manages to piece the jigsaw together. What awful fate lies in store for Queen Victoria and the royal family? Holmes is the only person who can save the day, but will he be in time?

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