Literature North West

Bill Rogers is a Bolton based author who specialises in  Crime Thrillers set in and around Manchester and the North West.  He has five books published to date, and two more due out this Autumn. 

The Cleansing was shortlisted for the LongBarn Books Debut Novel Award, and A Trace of Blood reached the semi-final of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2009

The car was still there. He edged a little closer, hugging the side of the towering railway viaduct. He stopped for a moment and listened. Other than the sound of his own breathing, and the rustling of the trees beyond the archway, there was silence.
He decided to wait for a while, to recover his breath, and take stock. This was not a place that people would come, approaching midnight, unless like him they had mischief in mind. The car, parked close to the kerb, just short of the entrance to the arch, had been there for over five hours. At first he had thought it a Mercedes saloon, but the arrow head badging with the double M logo was one that he had never seen before. Whatever; it was large, and flash, and worth a mint. He still could not understand why it was parked here, rather than on the car park further down the street where the CCTV camera kept watch.
The first of the iron gates creaked noisily as he made the dog-leg exit between the railings. He paused, before stepping out from deep shadow into the pool of moonlight spilling over the cobbled street, glinting silver on the gaping radiator grill. He ducked instinctively, and cursed, as a bat swooped low above his head. His fingers closed reassuringly over the tool that lay deep in the zipped compartment of his bomber jacket. He pulled his baseball cap further down over his forehead and walked quickly towards the passenger door.

Crouching low, he peered inside the car. It was still there, in the front passenger foot well. He unzipped his pocket, withdrew the centre punch, and pressed it against the bottom right hand corner of the window. The sound, like a muted gun shot, echoed in the tunnel created by the archway walls, and hung for a moment above the parkland beyond the gates. A fraction later, it was replaced by the wail of the car alarm. Golden flashes from the wrap-around headlights threw his silhouette into sharp relief. Straightening up, he placed the punch in the centre of the window, against the now crazed glass. A hole appeared the size of a golf ball. Two blows with his elbow were sufficient to allow his arm inside. The door release catch refused to respond. Cursing, he hammered the window with his elbow twice more until he was able to squeeze his right arm, head, and shoulders, into the car. With his body pivoted over the door panel he was able to grasp the handle of the briefcase. The shoulder strap caught momentarily on the rake adjustment lever before he was able to tug it free, and flee towards the park gates.
He jinked through the dog-leg like a rugby league winger, and sped onto the broad cobbled way his Nan still referred to as Fitzgeorge Street. He took the first right fork uphill, not slowing until he reached the exit at the side of the Mayflower pub. Pausing only to stuff the briefcase up the front of his jacket, he stepped out onto the pavement on Rochdale Road.
The steel grey shutters were down on Mays’ Pawnbrokers and Second Hand Jewellers, the bright red walls a muted glow in the glare of the street lights. To the right, he could just make out the communication mast of Collyhurst Police Station, less than half a mile away. He hurried across the road, and jogged by the side of the Youth Centre, past the impressive mural on the outside wall that he had helped to create. He slowed crossing Teignmouth Street, and entered Ryder Street, briefly disturbing an ancient German shepherd and a mangy sheepdog in one of the back yards, before disappearing like a phantom into the maze of maisonettes and three storey flats.

The sound of the alarm ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The lights flashed despairingly for several seconds, and gave up. Only then was it possible to hear the feeble tapping inside the car boot. A long-eared owl, attracted by the sound, perched on the fence beside the car. With three dimensional hearing it was acutely, if indifferently, aware of the futility of the struggle within. The owl sat there for a full five minutes, his head rotating from time to time through three hundred and sixty degrees. He listened as the sounds became weaker, and finally stopped.
Scanning the horizon one last time, he ruffled his feathers, spread his wings, and soared imperiously away, leaving the arches to the bats, the silence, and the night.

Website : www.catonbooks.com
Email : billrogers@billrogers.co.uk

Titles by Bill Rogers

The Cleansing

Christmas approaches as a killer haunts the streets of Manchester. This is his reckoning.  DCI Tom Caton and forensic profiler Kate Webb follow the trail from the old mass cholera graves, through the penthouse opulence of the canalside apartment blocks and The Gay Village, to the Victorian grandeur of the Town Hall.

Time is running out for Tom, for Kate, and for the City!

Shortlisted for the LongBarn Books Debut Novel Award

The 1st of the Tom Caton Manchester Crime Series

Details

• ISBN 9781-1-906645
• Publisher Grosvenor House Publishing
• Genre Fiction
• Setting Greater Manchester
• Extent 370pp

The Head Case

Roger Standing CBE, Head of Manchester's Harmony High Academy School, and the Prime Minister's Special Adviser for Education, is dead.  DCI Tom Caton is not short of suspects.  But if this is a simple mugging gone wrong then why is MI5 ransacking Standing's apartment, and disrupting the investigation?  And why are the widow and her son taking the news so calmly?  Something is rotten in the corridors of power.  And the killer is poised to strike again.

The second in the Tom Caton Manchester Crime Series

"As a fan of Val McDermid, Ian Rankin and Stuart Macbride, I'll have to add Bill Rogers to my list."  A.Duchmann

Details

• ISBN 978-0-9564220
• Publisher Caton Books
• Genre Fiction
• Setting Greater Manchester
• Extent 352pp

The Tiger's Cave

Twelve bodies, no motive, the hunt is on.  A lorry full of illegal Chinese immigrants arrives in Hull.  Twenty four hours later their bodies are discovered close to the M62 motorway.  Two young men man and a girl are missing, and their lives are at risk. Supported by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, Caton must travel to China to pick up the trail.  But he knows that the solution is closer to home in Manchester's Chinatown...and time is running out.

The third book in the Tom Caton Manchester Crime Series

"Fast moving,descriptive,well researched and full of intrigue.  An excellent example of the genre."  Alan Wheatley

Details

• ISBN 9780956422019
• Publisher Caton Books
• Genre Fiction
• Setting Greater Manchester
• Extent 349pp

A Fatal Intervention

A successful barrister, a wrongful accusation, a mysterious disappearance.  It's the last thing Rob Thornton - up and coming Manchester barrister - expects; an early morning knock on the door, arrested for rape.  When his mysterious accuser Anjelita Covas disappears he sets out to find her in London's criminal underworld and then back in Manchester.  A series of rhyming messages arrive each of them signalling a murder.  In tunnels, deep beneath the city lies a heart of darkness, where Rob most confront his nemesis, and make the hardest decision of his life.

The fourth in the Tom Caton Manchester Crime Series - can equally be read as a stand alone.

Details

• ISBN 9780956422033
• Publisher Caton Books
• Genre Fiction
• Setting Greater Manchester
• Extent 331pp

Bluebell Hollow

DCI Tom Caton's world is rocked when he learns of a son by a former lover.  Then the first of the bodies is discovered at the Cutacre open cast mine on the Salford/Bolton boundary.    The victims appear to have addiction in common.  Suspects include a prmiership footballer, a barrister, and just about everyone at the Oasis Rehabilitation Clinic in leafy Cheshire.  A sCaton digs deeper everything begins to fall apart.

"As a fan of Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, and Staurt mMacBride I'll have to add Bill Rogers to my list."  A.Duchmaan

List Price £9.99
Price £8.99

Details

• ISBN 9780956422026
• Publisher Caton Books
• Genre Fiction
• Setting Greater Manchester
• Extent 390pp