Richard Hernaman Allen

When Nick Storey visits the Overseas Parcels Office (OPO) at the Royal Agricultural Hall, to check whether the Temporary Charge on Imports is being collected, the arrangements look wide open to fraud. After this is confirmed by two postal workers, Nick is threatened by a local trade union official and his thugs. The local C&E manager is sacked after an argument with Post Officer managers about the level of thefts from the OPO. Nick and Rosemary try various means of publicising the frauds, but it's only after she climbs into the back of a warehouse where Nick and she believe the stolen goods are hidden that the evidence for the frauds is found. Even then local managers prevaricate and the postal staff riot. Finally, what cracks the case wide open is crucial evidence which came through the post....of course."Post and Perfidy" is the twenty-ninth book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

1965. Starting work in Customs & Excise HQ in London, Nick Storey comes across some strange people, including a bully and a very tall rude man with a violent friend. He strikes up a friendship with a colleague, who is subsequently stabbed to death in an alley near the Monument. Though the police believe it was a robbery, only his briefcase was taken. Helped by Rosemary and a purloined notebook, Nick comes across a strange brotherhood, based on ancient and arcane wisdom of Balqis, Queen of Sheba. He is also drawn into a plan to catch colleagues receiving illicit payments for the return of temporarily imported cars seized by C&E, which involves Rosemary going undercover. However, sorting these out costs another life and isn't without risk to their lives as well."Misfits and Miscreants" is the twenty-eighth book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

1996. Nick and Rosemary Storey are enjoying a river cruise from Moscow to St Petersburg when two British passengers from their excursion group are murdered, apparently on return from a visit to Yaroslavl. The cruise line ask them to get statements from relevant British passengers before the ship docks in St Petersburg. Facing a curtain of lies and half-truths, tales of hidden Nazi gold, well-concealed Russian connections and unable to check much of what is said to them, they have to rely on inconsistencies, tweaking the Russian bear's tail and a bear trap to identify both a brutal killer and his paymasters, not without risk to their own lives."Death on the Volga" is the twenty-seventh book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

A hundred-year-old body is discovered walled up in the flat above one owned by the daughter of Nick and Rosemary Storey. How did he get there and why? Deal was a notorious smuggling town and, as a former Customs Commissioner, Nick thinks it might be a smuggler or an exciseman. As a former Chief Inspector in the Fraud Squad, Rosemary prefers to find evidence. From censuses and other old archives, clues emerge. Could Samuel Rust, inventor of "Rust's Tonic" be involved? Or Gerard Culpeper, bankrupted by his brother Charles? Or two rival schoolmasters Percival Dromgoole and Jerome Barfoot? And why are their investigations causing someone to write threatening letters, which move on to a bomb in the petrol tank of their car? Will the concerns of the living enable Nick and Rosemary to discover the secrets of the dead, by way of some of the genteel towns in Kent?Richard Hernaman Allen is a former Commissioner of Customs & Excise, who has written nearly thirty detective stories, mostly set in Customs & Excise.

1994. Customs & Excise staff in Dover find revolting pornography being imported by a Cabinet Minister. Various underhand attempts are made by the Minister to retrieve the porn or get the case heard before a compliant magistrate. But how does this link with the "Hades Club" many of whose members are "the great and the good" and whose initiation rite appears to be to take a woman off the streets and rape her? Nick and Rosemary Storey and colleagues go undercover to obtain evidence, but when the cat is let out of the bag, Nick is menaced by a gunman at a strange hotel in Birmingham where the C&E Board are having a "retreat". If the Minister wishes to save his own skin by outing even more highly-connected people, what are his chances of survival? And why has the centre of Government been so invisible while this was going on?"It's all over now, Baby Blue" is the twenty-fourth book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

1993. Concerns about former Soviet bloc weapons falling into the wrong hands leads to Nick Storey becoming a member of a Cabinet Office committee and a special committee of the World Customs Organisation (WCO). Having seized harmless ex-Soviet weaponry at Felixstowe, Nick's belief that such materials would be imported into the UK is shaken. Claims made by his Russian opposite number about UK firms engaged in this trade lead to further, more serious seizures. But at a WCO meeting in Berlin, the Russian and his wife seek a private meeting with Nick and Rosemary, but are killed on the way there. Back-ullaging from the murder, Nick is able to identify who is running the smuggling operation, but what is being smuggled takes everyone's breath away."End of the road" is the twenty-third book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

Along with the rest of the Civil Service, Customs & Excise are required by Government to market test some of their activities in competition with private sector firms. As the majority of market tests are in the Outfield, Nick Storey keeps a careful eye on how they are proceeding, especially ones where he believes Collectors may be trying to fiddle the results. He also suspects some of the private sector bidders of collusion. As the results come in, it becomes plain that not just that some bids have been fiddled and there is collusion, but that someone in the Department has leaked details to some of the external competitors. Detailed analysis and Rosemary going under cover in one of the private sector bidders identifies the people doing the leaking. Then the politics takes over, of course. Market Forces? is the twenty-second book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Just promoted to the Board of Customs & Excise, Nick Storey is asked to help a Metropolitan Police enquiry into illegal arms sales to Morocco. Military hardware for "rockhopper" missiles misdescribed as telephonic equipment and destined for Morocco has been seized at Avonmouth. The exporters claim that they had Ministry of Defence approval, which the Ministry denies. Investigating a series of exports by British arms manufacturers indicates a pattern of implausible exports. The evidence increases after Nick arranges for a large cargo ship to be detained at Southampton. But as the net closes in on those involved in "Operation Ghost Sands," Nick, Rosemary and one of their daughters are targeted and even the outcome smells of rotten fish. "Ghosts in the machine" is the twenty-first book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Smugglers of a powerful methamphetamine, nicknamed dilithium crystals , by speedboat and light aircraft kill themselves rather than be caught by Customs. Nick Storey, Collector London Port, identifies patterns of evidence and smuggling routes by small ships and light aircraft, which lead to several dubious businesses in South Essex, a City investment company and a Belgian security firm with antecedents in African mercenary operations. Tracking light aircraft movements to small airfields uncovers smuggled krugerrands and a longstanding feud between Derek Clyne (son of Frank the skin ) and a rival, Benny Drew. To pressurise the suspects, Nick gets them together unawares, unwittingly causing a bloody conclusion. But that only serves to provide cover for the real crooks, masterminding a huge fraud. Eight Miles high is the twentieth book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Despite Nick Storey s reservations, London Port Collection are twinned with the port of Bordeaux in an EEC project. Nick s counterpart in Bordeaux is equally suspicious, but examination of their trade reveals a lot of medicines and drugs being exported from London to Bordeaux for an international charity called SantZ Mondiale , but also many which are supposedly exported to Bilbao which invariably get diverted to Bordeaux. As Nick and his colleagues dig deeper, there seems to be a counterpart to these exports with both import and exports of similar medicines and drugs by a series of linked companies with shady origins. To get hard evidence about what is going on, Nick and Rosemary make an uncomfortable journey by sea to Bilbao. But as fingers start to point at SantZ Mondiale , prominent people, including a newspaper magnate, are deployed to attack Nick and Rosemary and their daughters. Medicine Man is the nineteenth book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise.

1985. As the new Collector London Port, Nick Storey inherits a Collection with low morale and weak performance in a declining port. Among the changes he makes, flexible use of staff to massively increase controls at random times, leads to the discovery at Tilbury of large quantities of cash in a mattress and cocaine in furniture destined for a new hotel to be built by an Italian company in the proposed development at Canary Wharf. The company claims no knowledge of the cocaine. Almost immediately the Assistant Collector at Tilbury is brutally murdered. A covert operation to follow a later shipment leads to the death of four smugglers, while trying to flee. As those responsible dive for cover, an old adversary, Kenneth King, emerges from the shadows seeking to persuade Nick to put him in the clear. But exactly who is responsible for shooting up Nick and Rosemary's home with machine guns? "Old Ghosts" is the eighteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise.

Nick Storey is asked to carry out a review of Cabinet Office security procedures, but learns from a contact in MI6 that the real purpose is to identify a mole leaking secrets to the Chinese. Making slow progress because of the defensive attitudes by Cabinet Office staff, he is diverted by a botched Investigation Division operation in Liverpool against a Chinese smuggling gang. Sorting that out gives him an idea how the microfilms with leaked secrets are sent to Hong Kong. A Chinese meal with the Cabinet Office "foo-yung club" in Soho, gives Rosemary the chance to spot how the microfilm is handed over. Discrepancies between what Cabinet Office staff and security guards say and the discovery of a secret door used by the "Cabinet Office ghost" narrows the field of suspects and a C&E operation nets the courier with the microfilm. What happens next makes a corkscrew look straight. "The Corridors of Secrecy (aka Chinese Whispers" is the 17th book in a series of detective stories.

1984/5. Nick Storey is seconded from Customs & Excise to review DHSS work to tackle benefit fraud. Ministers have received an anonymous letter alleging a large scale fraud involving National Insurance numbers. Nick and Rosemary go undercover in Newcastle as VAT inspectors to follow a trail of evidence linked to a series of companies owned by a Geordie ex-miner, Mick Sutton. As they start to close in, one of the suspects vanishes and appears to have been killed, on Sutton's orders. To avoid a similar fate, Nick and Rosemary corner the weakest link in the chain at Ponteland golf club and try to dismantle a criminal network based on blackmail. "Ballad of a thin man" is the sixteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

1979. Nick Storey is transferred to head up a new internal investigations unit required by Mrs Thatcher's new government. His unit uncovers several illegalities including thefts of Government property and a false travel expense claim by an official who subsequently kills himself. Nick is alerted to a massive undercover operation which appears to be both leaking large sums of VAT revenue and also involving illegal action by investigators. When he raises this, he finds most of the Board, from the Chairman down, lined up against him. As the operation goes belly-up, his opponents become nastier and it takes some quick thinking by Nick's team, and Rosemary putting her life in danger, before the case can be resolved. And even then, there are stings in the tail. "On a carousel" is the fifteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Shadowing an Excise officer in a tobacco factory, Nick Storey finds he is using incorrect procedures. When Nick carries out the right ones, he discovers that the company are importing large amounts of tobacco illicitly. But the evidence goes missing and Nick starts to feel the hand of Freemasonry protecting the firm and encouraging him to let matters drop. However, some unofficial surveillance and Rosemary going undercover leads to where the smuggled tobacco is being concealed. Seizing it has tragic consequences for those Customs officers involved and it requires a desperate eveningOs work to resolve the situation. OMagic ClarinetO is the fourteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

1978. On holiday with their children in Oban, Nick and Rosemary Storey stumble across a stone hut filled with barrels of what seems to be illicit whisky. While on their way to walking nearby hills, they smell the unmistakeable smell of barley being fermented in a mash tun before distillation. But having overheard a conversation about the illegal whisky operation, Nick is unable to contact the local police or Excise officer. A chance remark and the arrival of the Customs cutter "Venturous" leads to a cat and mouse chase around Mull and the neighbouring islands. But there may be a price to pay for catching the whisky smugglers. "Copper Kettle" is the thirteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Nocturnal excursions enable Rakvir Stagarnik to gain useful information about who killed the Kerkrander and how the two Thanians were involved. Tracking some of these people leads to an empty house in a wealthy quarter of Ralchis and the realisation that a huge conspiracy is taking place. Through the intervention of a corrupt merchant and an old friend, Rakvir and Arhilka are able to put pressure on a high-placed merchant adventurer, while continuing the pretence of negotiating the sale of their "ghan". But before he confesses, he is captured and murdered by people who remain largely invisible. "Out of sight - 2 Invisible people" is the second of three volumes where Rakvir and Arhilka Stagarnik investigate murder and corruption in the City of Ralchis. It is part of the series which include "Through Fire" and "By Water", set in a distant planet, not too dissimilar from our own, written by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner of Customs & Excise.