The Shortest Days of the Year: The Grace den Herder Trilogy (Volume 2) - Softcover

Peter Ritchie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1500880868 ISBN 13: 9781500880866

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

Grace Den Herder returns in the second part of the trilogy, promoted to Superintendent in the in the specialist crime and counter terrorism directorate in the new Scottish police force structure. The story surrounds the return to Belfast of Billy Nelson. Brought up in the Shankill and scarred by the Troubles, he joins the army and, after distinguished service, he is discharged after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He returns to his loyalist roots, but Belfast and the people he knew have changed. Responsible for a series of violent attacks on innocent victims, he is ordered out of the city and moves to Edinburgh with his team. Nelson moves into the drugs business in Edinburgh and takes on the family who have been the main players in the city for years. The result is a series of events where Glasgow and Belfast criminals battle for control, upsetting the balance of power among the underworld. They attract attention from the police and Grace den Herder takes on the case. The old demons of the Troubles come back to haunt her again. The rest of the story is the complicated manoeuvring between the various factions including the Police in Scotland, PSNI and the Security Services who have an interest in Nelson and his paramilitary contacts in Belfast. The subsequent events unleash a series of unforeseen events and a trail of victims.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter followed his forefathers and started his working life at 15 as a deep sea fisherman. He eventually joined the police service moving through the ranks of CID/Murder Squad/Regional Crime Squad in Scotland. He then went on to manage the Organised Crime Unit in the National Criminal Intelligence Service in London where he ran a multi agency team drawn from various branches of the law enforcement and the security services. This was a unique concept at the time and Peter travelled to many parts of the world in this role. He was subsequently appointed as the UK Liaison Officer to Europol in The Hague where he spent five years. He returned to Lothian and Borders heading the Major Crime Team before taking on an advisory role for a project in Croatia. Following his retiral he worked on a number of private investigations before spending the next few years as part of the public inquiry team looking into the murder of the LVF leader Billy Wright in the Maze Prison. He also worked on a public inquiry into the death of eighteen patients in the Vale of Leven Hospital from a hospital acquired infection. Although the story of Grace den Herder is fiction Peter draws on his wide experience as an investigator to try and draw an authentic picture of how detectives, criminals and their victims think and feel. Follow Peter on his blog: http://gracedenherdertrilogy.blogspot.co.uk/

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1500880868
• ISBN 13: 9781500880866
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280