John Dean – Crime Writer

I am delighted that a review posted on Amazon UK on Friday October 31 (thank you, Ginger) praised as ‘outstanding’ the research in The Meek Shall Inherit, a DCI John Blizzard crime novel published by The Book Folks, a Joffe Books company.

The review meant a lot because, for the first time in one of my crime novels, I sent the main character and his sidekick abroad, namely to Singapore.

As I have said before, research is vital with all books but particularly if the author has selected somewhere away from their normal locations because, although the decision to base part of a story abroad offers great scope for storytelling, it also presents challenges for the author and the editors that handle the manuscript.

That’s because, although a book set abroad is a work of fiction, and comes with a degree of licence, as do all stories, the author still has a responsibility to view the narrative with a non-fiction author’s eye, making sure that they have done the appropriate research as happened with The Meek Shall Inherit (I did the same for Murder in the Pennines, the Jack Harris book which followed, part of which is set in Kosovo).

I have visited Singapore but there was much I did not know about it. The research

kept me right so I was delighted that a reviewer acknowledged the fact and enjoyed the novel.