Midlands-based crime novels see former journalist land publishing deal

Pic: Tony Bassett

A former Midlands journalist who has written a series of novels featuring a Leicester detective has landed a deal with a crime publisher.

Tony Bassett's first novel in the series, Murder On Oxford Lane, was published in January, and the second, The Crossbow Stalker, is due out in February.

Tony, who worked as a reporter for Worcester News (formerly the Evening News), gained a five-year contract last August with London publisher The Book Folks.

Tony said: "I'm particularly pleased this novel has finally appeared in print.

"It is the first book I ever wrote and, so far, has received some glowing reviews.

"I sat down and wrote the first draft in the spring of 2016. A year later, I decided the main characters weren't quite right, and I rewrote it."

Tony returned to the novel two years later after becoming immersed in other book projects but decided to rewrite the manuscript for a third time until he was finally satisfied with it.

Over the years, the opening chapter has appeared in at least four different guises.

Murder On Oxford Lane is set in and around Birmingham and concerns a property tycoon who disappears from a country village.

One of the two main characters, Dete

ctive Sergeant Sunita Roy, hails from a Leicester family.

The writer, who lives in Bexley, Kent, left the Worcester evening newspaper in the 1970s and enjoyed a career in Fleet Street, working for the Sunday People, both in its newsroom and its investigations department.

But he never forgot his time in the Midlands, and when he decided to bring his newspaper career to an end in 2015, he was inspired by his memories to create a string of detective novels based around Birmingham and nearby counties.

Tony said: "I never forgot the happy times I experienced and the interesting people I met while reporting on crime, housing problems and industrial disputes in the Midlands.

"So many novels are set in London and the South East. I thought urban and rural life around the Midlands would prove a rich vein for a novelist to mine."

Murder On Oxford Lane is available on Amazon as an ebook and a paperback.

Tony set his first two novels in Kent.

Smile Of The Stowaway (2018) followed a couple who harboured an asylum seeker found beneath their motorhome and then fought to clear him of a murder charge.

His second work, The Lazarus Charter (2020), saw the same Kent couple encountering Russian agents.

The book was endorsed by Marina Litvinenko, whose husband Alexander was poisoned in 2006, and the parents of Dawn Sturgess, the 44-year-old British mother-of-three who died in Salisbury.

Tony dedicated The Lazarus Charter to Alexander and Dawn.

Tony featured in the Leicester Mercury last June.

On his first visit to the city to make an author video, he was ordered to pay a £100 fine for parking in a pub car park.

Eventually, he won an appeal against the penalty charge notice.

Get all the latest news, updates, things to do and more from Leicester, in Leicestershire's dedicated InYourArea feed.