BERNIE FAZAKERLEY MYSTERIES 1 – 8

Bernie Fazakerley, an eccentric Oxford don with a penchant for marrying police officers, has a habit of becoming involved in murder cases, which often turn out to have a more personal side for her and her long-suffering friends and family. The books are presented here in chronological order of the events described in them. This is not the same as the order in which they were published.

Two Little Dickie Birds is set in 2002, when Bernie’s daughter Lucy is two years old and her friend, DI Peter Johns is struggling to combine a busy police career with giving time to his wife and student son. His investigations into a drowning reveal that he and his assistant, Sergeant Paul Godwin, have more in common that they realised.

Murder of a Martian takes place five years later, after Peter’s beloved wife, Angie, has been killed in a racially-motivated attack. Peter is now married to Bernie, and Lucy thinks of him as her Daddy. Two students discover a murdered man aboard a narrow boat and Peter is called to investigate. He soon finds that things are not as they first seemed and a second murder brings DCI Jonah Porter on to the scene.

In Grave Offence, Lucy has reached the age of nine and is beginning to develop an independent spirit. A trip on the river with a friend from the university comes to an abrupt end when she is assaulted by a strange woman, who hits her and then runs off. Things start to become more complicated when the same woman is found dead a few days later. Peter is struggling to put together the pieces of the jig-saw, but help comes from an unexpected quarter when DCI Jonah Porter takes a hand in the case from his hospital bed.

Awayday is Jonah’s case. Set in 2014, we see him tackling an investigation despite the disabling injuries that he sustained five years earlier, when he was shot by an unknown assailant. This is a traditional-style “whodunnit” with a cast of suspects drawn from the staff of an Oxford college. Peter, now retired, offers advice, which is sometimes welcomed! And Bernie comes along for the ride in her capacity as Jonah’s personal assistant.

Death on the Algarve takes place while Bernie and her family are on holiday in Portugal. A guest in a neighbouring apartment falls to his death and foul play is suspected. The local police are pleased to have the help of two British detectives as they investigate this tricky case.

In Sorrowful Mystery Peter’s son, Eddie, and his wife return from Jamaica to live in Oxford, but they start wondering if that was a bad move when their baby daughter disappears from her pram in a children’s playground. Officers from Thames Valley CID race against time in their efforts to reunite little Abigail with her parents.

Bernie makes a rare visit to her home city of Liverpool in Mystery over the Mersey. It’s not long before she is involved in a murder enquiry after discovering the body of a Roman Catholic priest aboard one of the Mersey Ferries.

The following year, Bernie is back in Liverpool again, summoned there by her Aunty Dot to look into a suspicious death at the Care Home where she lives. Jonah comes with her and decides that he needs to go undercover to solve the mystery. In my Liverpool Home describes how he works with Merseyside Police to uncover the real perpetrator and clear the name of Dot’s favourite nurse.