Pat Whitaker: 8 books

Returning tells the story of an alien, exiled to Earth, trying first to survive in an unfamiliar world, and then to find a way to return to his own kind. In the process he learns as much about himself as he does about human kind. The nature of the alien provides an opportunity for the reader to look at our world and ourselves with an external and unprejudiced perspective.

A serial killer is loose in Manchester masquerading as a vampire, and a forensic psychologist is tasked with creating a profile to help catch them, with unexpected results. The story takes popular myth and, reduced to its essentials, and asks what’s the most rational, scientifically plausible explanation...

Humanity is under attack from an enemy within. An enemy unable to be seen or confronted. Nemesis tells how in a battle with no rules, each individual must find their own answers, their own way in which to protect themselves and those they love. The book also invites the reader to reconsider the nature of life itself and whether our current definitions are really adequate.

This collection comprises: Bad Blood: A serial killer is loose in Manchester masquerading as a vampire, and a forensic psychologist is tasked with creating a profile to help catch them, with unexpected results. The story takes popular myth and, reduced to its essentials, and asks what’s the...

Mindset follows a group of outcasts who are abandoned in space and forced to survive anyway they can with the limited resources available. It examines both the technical and social problems that the survivors face and suggests real solutions based on actual science. It’s slightly unorthodox as the focus is, quite deliberately, on the collective rather than any particular individual.

Reporting on so-called alien abductions, a newspaperman is caught up a mixture of drugs, murder and a truly extraordinary set of events. It intermingles crime with romance and Science Fiction, confronts what we may perceive to be true with logic, and asks us to reconsider.

A physicist, suspected of a murder, tries to answer two questions, who killed the woman in the next room, and how did he see a ghost? There is a rather strong romantic element to this story, but in essence it is a crime mystery. The principal characters, constrained by their connection to a murder investigation, become involved in another, more esoteric investigation of their own.

An entomologist seeking answers as to how ants communicate goes to Namibia searching of her long-lost mentor. She finds the answers, but is faced with a question she cannot answer. It's a story of one person’s hunt for the truth. An ‘old school’ work of science fiction, it questions our homocentric view of the universe and our place in it.