Bromo Perkins crime fiction Series

Disgraced former British secret service agent Bromo Perkins has great hopes of establishing a quiet life in suburban Melbourne.  But he hasn't reckoned on property developer Peter Rasheed threatening to expose his affair with a local restaurateur's wife. Rasheed is involved in a long-running turf war with the restaurateur while operating a protection racket with the help of town councillors and officials.  When Bromo discovers a severely bashed Rasheed, his troubles are only just beginning.  Rasheed's blonde assistant is revealed bound and naked in the art gallery run by Bromo's mistress. When Bromo tries probing corruption at City Hall he receives threats of violence from rival gangs of standover men, and women. His life is further complicated when he finds his best client, architect Liz Shapcott, is embroiled in the developers' plans and council bribery. His enquiries lead him on a trail  involving internet dating sites, street kids and a women's protest group. He enlists the help of a Goth-addicted clerk at City Hall who turns out to be much more than he realised and provides a romantic diversion to further complicate his life.  After a kidnapping and a beating and a break-in to City Hall, he undergoes police interrogation before events take a dramatic and final twist set against the background of the MCG and the Jolimont railyards. 

WASHED UP – a Bromo Perkins investigation The police decide it is merely another sad case of suicide when an early morning jogger finds the body of beautiful young student Melissa O'Grady tangled in river weeds. Not so, says Liz Shapcott, Melissa's mentor and architect friend of disgraced British secret service agent Bromo Perkins. It's murder, she tells Bromo. She prevails upon him to unravel what led to Melissa's death and unmask those responsible.  She reveals the student had been gathering evidence for a thesis on migrant women being forced to work in the city's brothels. Bromo and Liz are lured along an increasingly murky trail through the underbelly of Richmond, a cosmopolitan suburb of Melbourne still emerging from its reputation as the violence-riddled haunt of crooks, standover men and killers. They encounter threatening letters, a firebomb lobbed into a brothel, the bashing of a street kid and the abduction of Melissa's two flat-mates. Lives spiral out of control as they battle corruption at city hall, a devious estate agent and a rogue cop. Is there anyone they can trust? A hit squad kidnaps Bromo and drives him into the depths of the state forest ready for execution. Only a park ranger and his bipolar wife have a chance of rescuing him and helping him catch those responsible for Melissa's murder. A cliffhanger climax awaits.

The fourth book in the ongoing Bromo Perkins crime series, Twisted Trees sees disgraced British secret service agent Bromo Perkins again being stirred from his exile as a "sleeper" in Australia. This time it is to delve into the brutal stabbing of the twenty-something son of Dave McCoy, a "person of interest" to Bromo's bosses back in London. Within days of his son's death,  McCoy's only daughter has been assaulted in her own home and pictures of her stripped, shaved and tied up sent to her father. Second son Brendan narrowly escapes an arsonist's attack on his bush block home and his sibling, Trevor, is upturned from his kayak and left to drown in the Yarra River. Each attack is accompanied by a cryptic warning about family trees and a threat that worse will follow. Bromo calls upon the genealogy experience of occasional associate and hoped-for lover Liz Shapcott who promises to research the McCoy family tree. The pair are soon drawn into a murderous web of duplicity and murder that leads back to London in the Blitz.

The third book in the ongoing crime fiction series sees former agent Bromo Perkins  joining the battle to stem the evil trade in blood diamonds. His past comes back to haunt him as a group of Sri Lankan mercenaries  coerce him into their struggle to reveal the Mr Bigs using Australia as their backdoor into an international network where murder is the rule of law. 

Old foes never fade away ... as reluctant sleuth Bromo Perkins discovers to his cost when he gets dragged in by his undercover masters to investigate three seemingly unrelated crimes. As the murky trail unwinds through the city's underbelly he learns to his cost that he is will again have to face the brutal Bulgarian mafia who were his undoing in a time in his past he would rather forget.