Chris Collett
ClChrstn@aol.com | About My Writing Police procedural crime novels based in Birmingham, England and featuring Detective Inspector Tom Mariner, published by Piatkus.
The first of these, The Worm in the Bud, sees Mariner investigating the murder of a local journalist, a crime in which the sole witness is the victim's brother, who is autistic and unable to communicate what he has seen. | Authors' Register: | About My Background Having all my life been a dedicated daydreamer, and avid reader of crime fiction, I began writing around ten years ago to fill the empty hours of insomnia.
As a special needs teacher my day job has brought me into contact with children and adults with autistic spectrum disorder over many years, and the central idea for The Worm in the Bud had been with me for some time.
I began writing it down and gradually it grew into a novel. From that book DI Tom Mariner developed into a real character and the idea for Blood of the Innocents emerged.Written in Blood and Blood Money have followed, and I'm currently working on the fifth in the Mariner series. |
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My Books |
The Worm in the Bud | | | Genre: Mystery - Police procedurals
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 | | THE WORM IN THE BUD
Chris Collett
In Birmingham a local journalist is found dead in his home, a puncture wound in his arm testimony to his death by lethal injection. A cryptic note by his side seems at first to suggest suicide but DI Tom Mariner has learned to take nothing at face value. As the police investigate further they discover a witness to events, Barham’s younger brother Jamie, but his severe autism means he is unable to communicate what he has seen.
Is Edward’s death related to his recent expose of a local crimelord? Or is there something else, something that only Jamie can tell them…
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| Blood of the Innocents | | | Genre: Mystery - Police procedurals
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 | | When two Birmingham teenagers go missing on the same day, it seems nothing more than a coincidence. Aside from their age, they have little in common. Yasmin Akhtar is the talented grammar school educated daughter of devout Muslim professionals. Ricky Skeet disappears from his council house after a row with his mother's latest boyfriend. DI Tom Mariner knows Ricky's mum from his days in uniform, so is less than happy when his superiors - bowing to media pressure - take him the Skeet case and reassign him to the more politically sensitive investigation. The press are convinced that Yasmin's disappearance is a racially motivated abduction, especially since the Akhtar's have found themselves the target of the far right. But working with Asian liaison officer Jamilla Begum, Mariner soon discovers that the picture painted by Yasmin’s parents of an unworldly ingenue is at odds with what her school-friends know to be true.
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| Written in Blood | | | Genre: Mystery - Police procedurals
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| | DI Tom Mariner’s life is beginning to look settled, with talk of a move to the country and even kids. But then an unexpected reunion with an old friend thrusts him into the unofficial investigation of a violent double murder to which he is inextricably linked, and he enters a world of corruption where the boundaries of justice are blurred making impossible to distinguish friend and foe. Compelled to work beyond the protection of his official role, Mariner find himself the target of person or persons unknown as he tracks down the killer, while at the same time uncovering the astonishing truth about his own origins.
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| Blood Money | | | Genre: Mystery - Police procedurals
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Awards, Prizes and Commendations |
 | | The Worm in the Bud A highly readable and challenging whodunit with a poignant comic thread.
Coventry Evening Telegraph
| | | | Sensational start to a crime writing career. Yorkshire Post
| | | | Collett sustains the intrigue - we want to know who done what and why - and is a writer with promise.
Cath Staincliff
| | | | Blood of the Innocents. I really couldn’t put it down. Raw Edge magazine
| | | | Collett leaves us wanting to know more about her protagonists lives, and hoping for a sequel. Judith Cutler
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