January set Inspector Ryga mystery

DEATH IN THE NETS is set in January 1951 and is the second in the Inspector Ryga mystery series.  Like all my crime and thrillers novels the Inspector Ryga series is set against the backdrop of the sea. Whereas my contemporary set DI Andy Horton novels are set in the Solent area of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, the 1950s set Inspector Ryga novels, like the Art Marvik mystery thrillers, are set in different coastal locations.

The period is also different in the Ryga mysteries.  It is the 1950s and so much has changed in society since those days that sometimes it's hard to recognise the world as it was then. Attitudes, technology, police procedure, the geographical landscape and transport have all changed.  Motivations and personalities however stay pretty much the same. There is still love and hate, jealousy, greed, revenge, good and evil, consideration and compassion, cruelty and callousness.

With the Inspector Ryga novels I can indulge myself in the past when there was no dashing about in police cars, no mobile phones or internet, no Police National Computer or DNA, no national and indeed international databases therefore the pace of life and solving the crimes is very different and I hope I have reflected that in this historical series, which I greatly enjoy reseraching and writing.  I also very much like my thoughful, patient detective, Scotland Yard's Inspector Alun Ryga who is sent out at a moment's notice to help solve murder crimes around the coast of Britain.

In the first, DEATH IN THE COVE, Ryga is sent to the Royal Island of Portland, Dorset to investigate the death of a man in a pin-striped suit found dead in an isolated cove. In number two in the series DEATH IN THE HARBOUR, Ryga is called in to investigate the murder of a police constable and his misisng wife at the port of Newhaven in East Sussex. And in number four DEATH IN THE DUNES, Ryga is on the Kent coast investigating the death of female pilot Barbara Fennel. There will also be a new Inspector Ryga in summer 2024, which is set in Cornwall.

But to return to January 1951 and Inspector Ryga in DEATH IN THE NETS.  Former war photographer, Eva Paisley, insists that Ryga, return with her to the Devon coast where she has been staying with a friend, a former refugee from Belgium. Eva remains tight-lipped about the reason, saying only that she’s puzzled and concerned over something she has heard since arriving there a week ago. Ryga, off duty for the weekend, is only too pleased to escape London for the sea air and spend time in Eva’s company.

She takes him to a house in the fishing port of Brixham where the son of her friend is adamant that he’s seen a body on the shore ‘all bashed up’. Eva claims the little boy has been talking of nothing more for a week. The boy’s mother dismisses it as an over-active imagination but Eva’s not convinced. Now the child is adamant the body he saw was on the very night of their arrival.

Ryga asks the child to take them to the location, not expecting to see anything, but is stunned to find the child has been telling the truth; on the dark shore, on the wet January night is indeed the body of a man, stabbed through the heart and tangled up in fishing nets.

After making some preliminary enquiries, Ryga, who has no jurisdiction to investigate, has to hand the case over to the local police. But very soon, after a series of startling revelations, he is summoned back to Devon to discover why the dead man who left the town eleven years ago has returned and why someone hated him enough to murder him.

I hope you enjoy reading DEATH IN THE NETS.

See a map of where the Inspector Ryga historical mysteries are set.

About Inspector Alun Ryga

Ryga is a former German prisoner-of-war. His ship was seized by a German Raider in 1941 as a result of which he spent the rest of the  war incarcerated in MILAG, (Marine Internierten Lager).  Here he had to learn how to cope with the uncertainty, fear and deprivations of forced incarceration with no option but to wait, hope and pray that the war would soon be over and the Nazis would be defeated.  

 His experience has made him observant, analytical and reflective.  It has also given him insights into his fellow man.  He’s witnessed compassion, cruelty, cowardice and heroism, mental breakdown and despair. He’s made a promise to himself that whatever happens after the war he’ll keep an open mind and never judge. 

His experience at sea, and as a prisoner-of-war, have made him unique in his approach to solving coastal based crimes.