How did you come up with the name for the Inspector Ryga mysteries?

The Inspector Ryga mysteries DEATH IN THE COVE, DEATH IN THE HARBOUR and DEATH IN THE NETS are set in 1950s England, a country still reeling from the aftermath of war with austerity and rationing biting hard. Newly promoted to detective inspector, Ryga from Scotland Yard, a member of the Murder Squad, is sent out to solve baffling coastal crimes. His first investigation takes him to the Royal Island of Portland in Dorset; his second to the port of Newhaven in East Sussex and his third to the fishing port of Brixham in Devon. Number four and five in the Inspector Ryga series to be published in 2023 are respectively set in Dungeness, Kent and the Penzance area of Cornwall.

DEATH IN THE COVE introduces Ryga to former war photographer, Eva Paisley, who is to assist him on his other cases.

So how did I come up with the name - Ryga?

Ryga (rhymes with Tiger) started off as Inspector Rees because he has a welsh background but had left Wales when he was 15 to join the Merchant Navy like his father. Ryga is actually Latvia’s capital on the Baltic Sea but that had no influence on my choice of the name. It wasn’t until I had got well into Eva Paisley’s character that I discovered from her lips ‘Rees’ didn’t sound right. Eva rarely calls him by his first name. I tried Regan but that kept making me think of the TV programme The Sweeney with Regan in it (John Thaw) and my character was the opposite to him so I played around with it, dropped the ‘n’ got Rega then changed the ‘e’ to ‘y’ and got Ryga. It sounded good coming from Eva - sharp, edgy. I liked it and it stuck.

DEATH IN THE COVE is Inspector Ryga's first solo investigation outside of London, where he is despatched to solve the mystery of why a man in a pin-striped suit is found murdered in an isolated cove on the Royal Island of Portland in Dorset. Here he meets war photographer, Eva Paisley, for the first time. Ryga quickly realises that her observations could provide the breakthrough he needs in a complex murder investigation and the answer to the haunting circumstances that have sent the man in the pinstriped suit to his death.

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The second Inspector Ryga mystery, DEATH IN THE HARBOUR is set in the port of Newhaven, East Sussex where Ryga has to solve a puzzling and disturbing case of why an ordinary police constable was murdered and his sensible law-abiding wife has gone missing.

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Number three in the Inspector Ryga series DEATH IN THE NETS is set in the small fishing town of Brixham, Devon. It's a cold wet January night in 1951, the body of a man stabbed through the heart, is found tangled up in fishing nets in Brixham Harbour, Devon. After a series of startling revelations, Ryga is tasked to discover why the dead man who left the town eleven years ago has returned and why someone hated him enough to murder him.

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The Inspector Ryga mysteries are published in paperback, ebook, Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Google Books and Apple Books.

DEATH IN THE COVE and DEATH IN THE HARBOUR are also available as audio books on Audible, and from B7 Media, narrated by Jonathan Rhodes.