Alan Tootill

Readers of the Martin Cole series of novels will be familiar with the cosy side (apart from a murder or two) of the fictional Devon town of Roselake. In his new novel Alan Tootill pulls the curtain aside to reveal what goes on behind Roselake's tranquil fa ade.A request to change a street name leads to division in the town, vigilantes roaming the streets and police helicopters in the air. Not to mention the burning down of the Town Hall.'English provincialism gently but tellingly skewered''a great gallery of characters''a ring of authenticity even when (or because) things verge on the preposterous and comic'

This volume contains five new stories from author Alan Tootill, continuing the Blackpool series of hard-boiled crime fiction, where noir meets pulp.The Second Man and Win Some, Lose Some feature PI Mike Grady, with whom readers of the Blackpool novels will be familiar. In the Second Man, Grady is offered a simple job, delivering a bundle of cash in return for a gambling IOU. Seems an easy assignment, until murder queers the pitch. In the second story Grady is asked to save an attractive woman from the unwelcome advances of her boss. Grady finds nothing is as simple as it looked.The Spider introduces downmarket PI Rick Mason. An old flame asks him to help put her new partner on the straight and narrow and keep him out of jail.In Sam Cooke, PI Pete Mallone finds he is out of his depth when he witnesses a killing and ends up on the wrong side of the law.Chrome tells a story of regret, old acquaintance and an unsolved puzzle.

When he walked into my office it took me a while to recognise Charles Foster.Then I twigged. He was a fracking ambulance chaser. I thought the no-win no-fee lawyer was handing me an easy job for good money. All I had to do was carry out basic background checks on a few prospective clients.I found he'd left out a few things. He didn't tell me Paul Spencer was dead. He didn't tell me I was Paul's stand-in. He didn't tell me about Jessica's long legs. He didn't tell me he was going to disappear. To be fair, he didn't know that himself.Noir meets pulp meets fracking, greed and corruption in the fourth in Alan Tootill's series of Blackpool Novels, featuring PI Mike Grady.

They said fracking would make Blackpool a boom town. They said it would bring jobs and money. It did. For the whores, the drug dealers, the foreign cheap labourers, the local politicians, the ambulance-chasing lawyers. And for me, PI Mike Grady. I'm not saying I'm proud of it. It just happened that way.It started when Mrs Hall walked into my office. Her husband had drowned in the frackers' water reservoir. The coroner recorded an open verdict. Mrs Hall wasn't happy. I started digging. I came up with more than I bargained for.Pulp meets fracking, greed and corruption in the third in Alan Tootill's series of Blackpool Novels.

Steve Latham left Blackpool with a bullet hole in his arm and a determination never to return. He ran to the capital, changed his name, became a PI and never looked back. Now, twenty years later, a chance encounter in a London street leads to a plea for him to come back to the seaside town, to look for a missing girl. A daughter he never knew he had.Steve's return rakes up the past, revealing a tale of drugs, deception, long-held grudges and murder. Alan Tootill's second Blackpool Novel continues his fictional vision of a town fuelled by crime, greed and lust.

In the USA shale gas extraction is taking a toll on the nation's environment and health.Now, in the UK, the oil and gas companies are faced with ever-diminishing returns from conventional sources. They want to bring new hydraulic fracturing, coal bed methane and underground coal gasification techniques to our coastal and rural areas.In Fracking The UK, Alan Tootill takes a look at the history of shale gas development in the US, the damage it is causing, and how a powerful industry wants not only to industrialise Britain's landscape but throw concerns about climate change to the wind. His conclusion is simple. We should not allow this to happen here.

Unable to rest on his laurels, Martin finds himself involved in the suspicious deaths of two local councillors. Martin knows the two were linked by the case he was investigating, but was it coincidence they both seemed to have died of heart attacks within a day of each other? And why was Councillor Patton's car where it was when he was found dead at the wheel? Martin has a major puzzle on his hands. Not to mention the thorny problem of who is stealing prize-winning cacti from Roselake's greenhouses.Book 4 of the Martin Cole series.

Martin Cole has a new case. Three dogs have been poisoned on a Roselake housing estate. But his mind is soon taken off that problem by a call from a mother whose son has just been charged with murder and who claims he is innocent.Soon Martin and his assistant Tanya are involved in another round of battles to find the truth and in the meantime to sort out their own personal lives. Is romance in the air for Tanya? How can Martin keep his ex-wife under control and out of his hair?