The story behind Inspector Andy Horton FOOTSTEPS ON THE SHORE

Locations inspire me. I’m always on the look out for a good place to put a body - a fictional one I hasten to add. I’m very fortunate to live in a coastal area which is extremely diverse and offers up all kinds of intriguing places for bodies, from bays, beaches and boatyards to shores, ships and shipwrecks, coast, coves, ferries and frogmen. OK so I haven’t used the latter in a novel but give it time because there is always the mystery surrounding Buster Crabb, the Royal Navy frogman and MI6 diver who vanished during a reconnaissance mission around a Soviet cruiser berthed at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1956. (Perhaps I should save this for the 1950s set Inspector Ryga mystery novels?)

You name it Portsmouth, the surrounding harbours, the Solent and the Isle of Wight has it. It also has a very diverse community and tons of history including a  Roman castle at Portchester which is one of the settings for the Inspector Andy Horton crime novel FOOTSTEPS ON THE SHORE.

In FOOTSTEP ON THE SHORE Inspector Andy Horton is called to a house next to Portchester Castle, where a woman he’d only met the day before, Venetia Trotman, has been murdered. Horton had been intending to buy a boat from her which had belonged to her late husband to replace his small boat which had been torched by a villain with Horton only just managing to escape with his life. Horton has been living on board his boat in Southsea Marina since his estrangement from his wife, Catherine.



Added to this is the return of Horton’s nit-picking boss, DCI Lorraine Bliss from her secondment at HQ and she’s intent on making Horton’s life as difficult as possible. Someone else also seems set on troubling Horton when he finds a symbol scratched on his Harley Davidson. Horton is under pressure to get results, but things are about to get much worse for the beleaguered detective …

There are many twists and turns in this novel with a hint of international crime behind it but I will say no more. I wouldn’t want to spoil your enjoyment of it.

'Procedural fans who haven’t already read Rowson should be encouraged to do so in the strongest possible terms.' Booklist, Starred Review

Available in paperback, as an ebook, on Amazon Kindle and on Kobo, and as unabridged audio book narrated by Gordon Griffin.

Also available for loan in libraries in the UK, Commonwealth and the USA.

Where to buy Pauline Rowson's books