THE THREADBONE PRESS
Threadbone Crimeshelf
THE THREADBONE PRESS
THE THREADBONE PRESS
THE THREADBONE PRESS
THE THREADBONE PRESS
Threadbone Non-Fiction
Threadbone Crimeshelf™ continues a tradition of publishing which stretches back to the earliest days of the Threadbone Press. OPPOSITE: An array of publications (c1847-1956) from The Threadbone Press Archives the craftsmanship of which continues to inspire; RIGHT: Original concept art by design student, Amy Courtauld-Institute, for Inspector Allardyce which, according to author Doug Graves, "captured neither the likeness nor the spirit" and was even "from the wrong era entirely". CENTRE: Amy Courtauld-Institute's second attempt which was "if such things are possible, is even worse than the first."
Threadbone Crimeshelf™
Threadbone Crimeshelf™ is the specialist crime fiction imprint of The Threadbone Press.
Bringing a wealth of expertise and the highest publishing standards to the ever-popular crime genre, the Threadbone Press's unrivalled roster of crime-writing talent heralds a new "golden age" for British crime writing. With a catalogue of over eight books, Crimeshelf™ is set to become the number one destination for the criminally curious.
Exclusive to the Crimeshelf™ stable of writers is master plotter Doug Graves, 4 times winner of the West Country Crime Writers' Association's Golden Candlestick and two-times nominee for the Hengistbury Times-Threadbooker Prize for Crime Fiction. Other Threadbone authors include household names Gordon Tanqueray, Felicia Biro, Meredith Hoover, Tyson Dyson, Helmut Bosch, Brenda Hotpoint, Valery Kenwood, Sagan Le Cruset, Mandy Pyrex, Madeleine Flash, Carol Ajax and Kenneth Colgate.
Published in Hardback, Softback and Limpspine™ versions, Crimeshelf™ in a one-stop shop for lovers of mystery, intrigue and dark deeds: a cornucopia of content for the crime curious connoisseur crazy for all things that go bump in the night.
The Inspector Allardyce Mysteries
Inspector Allardyce - now a firm favourite with crime fiction aficionados worldwide - is the creation of Doug Graves.
Doug Graves is the pen name of Thurston Trebor. He was born in the West Country and worked for nearly 20 years as a junior Accountant for The
Doug Graves
Threadbone Corporation. His early novel Death Comes Racing was based on an incident he witnessed as a 36 year old at the Knowelton Race Course. Wriiing was, he says, his therapy. Published in 2012, Death Comes Racing propelled him to regional recognition and won him the first of his 4 West Country Crime Writers’Association’s Golden Candlestick Awards. He is a two-times nominee for the Hengistbury Times Threadbooker Prize for Crime Fiction. Doug is the author of more than seven books. He lives in the West Country and is married to Threadbone Press Crime Series Editor Minty Trebor. His latest novel Death Takes A Cruise will be published by Threadbone Crimeshelf in the Spring of 2017.
The Inspector Allardyce Mysteries are available from the orinoco store
The Spirit of Crime Series
Featuring troubled Detective Inspector Stiller on secondment to HMRI whilst recovering from serious trauma sustained during his time with the Serious Fraud Office (DEFRA Division) this highly regarded award-winning series is a must for those who like "a drink with their crime and a crime with their drink" [Chickerell Monthly Review]. Enter the sleazy world of international alcohol smuggling and follow
Gordon Tanqueray before his breakthrough
DI Stiller as he wages a one man crack-down on illegal imports and the criminals who drive it. A fast-paced ride through a helter-skelter word - its "barrels of fun" with a "vintage cask of characters".
Gordon Tanqueary who also writes as Glen Livet and Jack Bushmels was born in Scotland but grew up and was educated in Dorset (Corscombe Sixth Form College). He worked in the Dorset Sour Mash Industry before publishing his first novel "Gin Rummy". He now writes full time and lives with his Agent in East Orchard. "A Rum Do' was nominated for a Threadbone Golden Truncheon Award and was made into a successful TV Series by ThrupieceMedia for CHANNEL DORSET.
The Spirit of Murder Mysteries are available from the orinoco store
Polly Anthus aka Freda Shufflebottom at her Threadbreaks desk.
The Mediterranean Mysteries
Featuring feisty Greek Sleuth Tessa Lonika, who has habit of finding trouble wherever she unpacks her battered old suitcase, the Mediterranean Mysteries are a treat for lovers of the whodunnit with an interest in travel. Employed as a Holiday Rep for Tantalus Tours, Tessa finds herself involved in every kind of scrape as she island hops with her friend and fellow rep Zak Kynthos.. With murder lurking just around the corner, The Mediter-
ranean Mysteries are a delightful read whether at home, on holiday or just neglecting the kids.
Polly Anthus is the nom de plume of Freda Shufflebotton (DHRA member since 2006). Employed for more than 30 years in the travel industry (she is head of sales at Threadbreaks the Stinsford-based travel agency), she has travelled extensively throughout the West Country but has always harboured an ambition to travel to Greece. Having advised many an adventurous traveller and researched the Greek Islands better to service her clients, she has all the local knowledge necessary to bring her novels to authentic life. Polly lives in Morcombelake with her twelve cats (Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Kefalonia, Andros, Kos, Icaria, Milos, Paros, Karpathos, Samathrace & Mr Naughty).
The Mediterranean Mysteries are available from the orinoco store
The Herston General Hospital Mysteries
Dashing and debonnaire Adam Carrington is everyone’s favourite consultant at Herston General. Patients adore his reassuring bedside manner, whilst his colleagues can only stand in awe of his reputation as a man who can operate with skill and save lives others believe hopelessly lost. With helpful nurse Sister Sally Wellbeloved, by his side his is the perfect world
Real Life Consultant Ahmed Aziz doing his "day job". He writes with some insight and a little knowledge
until death invariably intervenes.
Emma Roid is the nom de plume of Mr Ahmed Aziz (DHRA member since 2016). An NHS consultant for more than 30 years and a private practitioner since 2016, Ahmed has performed thousands of largely successful operations and is generally regarded as "a safe pair of hands early in the week". Winner in 2018 of the silver scalpel for medical crime fiction for his debut novel Emergency Ward Love, he has gone on to write more than one other book (2). He is married to Polly Deathridge (who he freely admits is his model and inspiration for much loved fictional nurse Sally Wellbeloved) and lives with her in Dorset . They have 15 children. Between operations he splits his time between writing and research. He recently appeared before the Disciplinary Committee of the GMC but prefers not to talk about it.
The Herston General Mysteries are available from the orinoco store
The Imperial Rome Mysteries
In the midst of Imperial Rome's majestic capital ordinary folk go about their normal business - working, resting, playing (their protecting spirit is, after all Mars) and occasionally murdering each other. Whenever murder rears its ugly head you can be sure that the inconspicuous (and frankly unprepossessing) figure of Vinicius Pusilli (tablet maker and part time barman) will not be far away. With a nose for crime as well as for all the other rotten smells of Rome, Vinicius Pusilli, is a man with a finger on the pulse, an ear to the ground and an eye on the mainchance.
Digital Image Consultant Effigies Denudator is the real woman behind Quintus Remus. She does not appear at Book Festivals.
Quintus Remus is the nom de plume of would-be amateur sleuth and former Threadbone Digital Laboratories technologist - Effigies Denudator - who, in addition to writing novels, is also an internationally famed exponent (and co-developer) of the Post synchronic chromic lateral denudation™ technique designed to precision scratch images through advanced digital technology to reveal hitherto undiscovered layers of interest and (sometimes) meaning beneath the surface stratum. She is also a renowned zither player and has appeared on at least one occasion with the Thrupiece Philharmonic Orchestra under charismatic Russian maestra Olga Legova. Writing as Quintus Remus she has received critical acclaim from a number of organisations and was briefly Chair of the Silver Pugio Award Panal - Dorset's premier prize for Historical Detectrive Fiction. She lives in Piddlehinton with Trucious, her beloved pomeranian.
The Imperial Rome Mysteries are available from the orinoco store
The Wendell Chance Mysteries
Ex World War I hero Wendell Chance is the eponymous detective in Agatha Panthus's highly successful crime series and the subject of more than four of her mature novels. High born, the World War I hero has not escaped battle unaffected by the traumas of war, though as a member of the Carlyle Club, he is often well-placed to investigate crimes in social circles to which others can only aspire.
For reasons unknown to man (or woman) his first appearance in the novels is often presaged by the arrival of an East African pygmy wearing a bow tie and bright sequined shell suit. Often quizzed on her deployment of this quixotic device, Ms Panthus has said only that it amuses her to introduce an element of the absurd that is at once fanciful yet reassuring to her audience. Originally published by Allen Iain, The Wendell Chance Mysteries have found a new and appreciative audience via the current Threadbone Press reprint.
Authoress and playwright Agatha Panthus has achieved near iconic status amongst those for whom she holds iconic status
Agatha Panthus is the birthname of Agatha Panthus (DHRA founder member). Finding fame in her mid 30s with her novel Death on the Style [later recast by the author as the highly successful Ealing Broadway play Murder on the Style], she is the author of more than four crime fiction novels, several of which feature her handsome ex-War hero detective Wendell Chance.
Ms Panthus was married to anthropologist Professor Sir Sacheverel Mountebank for more than two decades and often accompanied him on his expeditions to East Africa. The couple returned from one of their many visits with a pet East African Pygmy whom they named Ptolemy. He was sometimes allowed to accompany them to social events and features as a character in more than one of her novels. She and Sir Sacheverel lived in Pokesdown and Tarrant Rawston. She died in 1987 after ingesting a rogue Uncle Joe’s Mintball given to her as a Christmas present by an impatient niece.
Download a sample text HERE
The Wendell Chance Mysteries are available from the orinoco store
The Maisy Darling Mystery Romances
Carefree though serious Maisy Darling is a young girl in a hurry. Recently "released" from her job as secretary to Sir Hubert Pairing [a misunderstanding involving a filing cabinet, a misplaced suspender-belt and a London A-Z Gazetteer], she finds herself travelling overseas on a series of freelance missions helping her friend Ada da Campe in her mission to liberate European women from the tyranny of their unenlightened male overlords.
Unusually well-endowed and more likely to attract unwelcome attention than to fade into the background, Maisy must overcome her natural assets to solve the various mysteries which confront her whilst trying - usually without success - to sort out her ever more chaotic love life.
Readers will be as sure to fall in love with the endearing Maisy as her many beaux, whilst lovers of mystery and murder will find more than enough to keep their hands off the peppermint creams.
Authoress Eleanor Beechwood whose true identity is a well-kept secret is very unlikely to look like her official portrait
Eleanor Beechwood is the nom de plume of a famous Dorset personality (and DHRA member). After a life on the international circuits she turned to writing whilst convalescing from a fall in Higher Wraxall. Discovering she had a talent for plotting, a reasonable grasp of syntax but haphazard spelling [“Thank goodness for spellchecking!”] she wrote her first novel - All Aboard for Murder - in less than 2 years. She is now the author of more than two mystery romance novels, all of which feature her feisty socialite detective Maisy Darling.
Ms Beechwood enjoyed a long and complex relationship with a former Dorset Professor and for more than a decade she was his muse, travelling companion and horizontal jogging partner. She often accompanied him on his travels abroad.
A 1st Class Ticket to Murder is her third novel. She now lives in a small castle near Sturminster.
Download a sample text HERE
The Maisy Darling Mystery Romances are available from the orinoco store
The Locke D Roome Mystery Thrillers
Hardened private dick Locke D Roome is often called in when the local police authorities find conventional detection isn't working. Using the special skills available only to a high functioning alcoholic with mild autistism, Roome often succeeds where others fail.
The hero of four novels, Roome's latest encounter sees him summoned to post-war Wynford Eagle where excavations at a bomb-site lead to strange sightings and even stranger events.
Readers will not fail to be fascinated by the dysfunctional Roome whose unconventional methods are as alarming as they are effective and whose spatial unawareness leaves chaos in his considerable wake
E S Collater is the nom de plume of Colin Bigge-Amos [DHRA member 2011-].
E S Collater is the nom de plume of Colin Bigge-Amos [DHRA member 2011-]. After a life as a long-distance lorry driver during which he managed to maintain three separate households each in ignorance of the existence of the others, he turned to writing in 2010. Discovering he had a talent for “putting one word after another in a reasonably coherent sequence”, as well as an appetite for correcting fluid, he wrote his first novel - Don’t Go Into the Garden Mohammed” - and became a professional writer shortly thereafter. He is now settled with one of his families in Chetnole and is the author of several mystery thrillers, all of which feature hardened private dick Locke D Roome.
Mr Collater has enjoyed a complex relationship with the reading public, dividing opinion on whether he is better at writing thrilling mysteries or mysterious thrillers. Some suggest neither.
Don’t Go Down Those Stairs is his fourth novel and - according to the critics - his third equal best.
Download a sample text HERE
The Locke D Roome Mystery Thrillers are available from the orinoco store
Threadbone Crimeshelf: Where Quality is No Mystery