Charlie Garratt is author of a series of crime novels featuring Inspector James Given, set in the late 1930s and early 1940s. His love of crime novels goes way back to childhood and adolescence. Whether it be the Famous Five’s criminal investigations, science fiction detectives on distant worlds, or Wilkie Collins’ immortal The Moonstone.
Charlie believes there is something fundamental in crime fiction. The unravelling of a mystery, the search for truth, and the thrill of the hunt. Read more ….
A Shadowed Livery
With a family tragedy neatly written off as a murder and a double suicide, Given is supposed to tidy up a few loose ends, but he’s sure there is more to the case than meets the eye.
What dark secrets were the Barleigh family hiding? Could there be another killer involved? And how will Given react when he is forced to confront the ghosts of his past…?
Set in 1938, A Shadowed Livery, is a country house mystery in the classic style.
A Pretty Folly
A grisly murder case lands in Inspector James Given’s lap. A young girl’s body is found in the crypt of a prestigious school. Part-mummified, it is hard to discover how long she’s lain there.
But why wasn’t she reported missing? Has no one been looking for her?
And could more lives be at risk…?
A Pretty Folly is the second historical crime novel in the Inspector James Given Mystery Series
A Patient Man
James Given travels to France in search of his uncle when a complicated case arises at home. Before leaving, Given had been put in charge of a seemingly straightforward suicide, but now the police suspect the man was murdered.
Can Given make peace with his past? Will he be able to cope with another murder case?
And can he save his family from the horrors of Hitler’s regime…?
A Patient Man is the third historical crime novel in the Inspector James Given Mystery Series
Where Every Man
James Given leaves England to start a new life in France, but when a local woman dies under suspicious circumstances, Given is asked to investigate. What had first appeared to be a tragic cycling accident seems to be something more sinister.
Was the woman’s death accidental? Was she involved with a German spy?
And will this complex case bring James Given out of retirement…?
Where Every Man is the fourth historical crime novel in the Inspector James Given Mystery Series
A Malignant Death
Most of Europe is now in the brutal grip of the Second World War. Still haunted by his past cases, James has no intention of resuming his role as a police detective. However, when his ex-boss asks him to investigate the theft of some sensitive military blueprints, James reluctantly agrees to help.
Things take a turn for the worse when his boss goes missing. Though James has vowed to leave behind the danger and violence of his old life, the pull of an unsolved mystery soon proves too strong to ignore.
What happened to the ex-Superintendent? Is his disappearance linked to the theft?
And can James solve the two cases without putting himself in jeopardy…?
A Malignant Death is the fifth historical crime novel in the Inspector James Given Mystery Series.
A Handkerchief for Maria
It is late 1945. Germany and Japan are defeated, and a mother sits at her eighteen-year-old daughter’s hospital bedside, telling stories of her family over the past 100 years to pass the time.
Maria weaves the tales she heard at her father’s knee with confessions from her life and an escape from war-torn Ireland to England. As life ebbs away from her daughter, Maria comes to understand the forces that have shaped her life.
What is true, what is fantasy, and should she tell Alice of her one real love?