A Mersey Killing

A skeleton and a missing woman. A doomed romance. A mystery spanning two generations.

Liverpool, 1961. A group of young men come together seeking fame and fortune, as the fledgling sounds of the Swinging Sixties take root in the city. Soon, Liverpool becomes synonymous with the music that shapes a generation.

Liverpool, 1999. Skeletal remains found in the docklands lead Detective Inspector Andy Ross and Sergeant Izzie Drake into a journey through time, as the investigation takes them back to early days of the Mersey Beat.

Whose bones laid beneath the mud of the River Mersey for over thirty years, and what links them to a young woman, missing for the entire time?

THE TITLE
'A Mersey Killing' is of course a play on words, and the Mersey of the title of course refers to the mighty River Mersey, one of England's major waterways upon which the great port city of Liverpool stands. After many years of writing, I finally decided to return to my family roots by setting a novel in my ancestral home town and wanted the title to fully reflect the setting. As this was to be the first book in a series set in the city, the collective title of The Mersey Mysteries was born and two further books are currently planned.
THE SETTING
A Mersey Killing is set against a backdrop of the early 1960s. when the 'Merseybeat' was born and where The Swinging Sixties really kicked into gear with the emergence of groups like The Beatles, The Searchers, Gerry and the Pacemakers and other great names that live on in today's music scene. 
It seemed natural therefore, to use the sixties music scene as the setting for the first book in the series, and as such, the concept of using an aspiring pop group as the basis of the plot line for the book came in to being and 'Brendan Kane and The Planets' were born.
Most of the central characters in the book are in fact based on members of my own family and friends from those days of the early sixties, and I hope that helps to add a little three dimensional feel to them, as they are in fact, based on those real people, and not just figments of my imagination.
DIALECT
Most UK readers will be familiar with the fact that the people of Liverpool, 'Scousers' as they are known, use a particular dialect that sets them apart from other members of the British population. This may not be quite so well known to U'S or readers from other countries, so please be aware that what you may at times perceive to be bad grammar or spelling is in fact caused by the fact that much of the dialogue is written in the local dialect, in order to make the characters realistically Liverpudlian. I'm sure you'll soon work out what they mean!

I can only hope that, as readers, you enjoy reading A Mersey Killing as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you to you all!