Goldhearted

by Helen Slavin

You could not blame the journalist for latching onto the upcoming anniversary of the crime. It was a big story of how the bank robbers, unknown to this day, had got away with all that gold. The following morning the post brought Rory Fox pizza fliers, a gas bill and a small white envelope. Inside was a plain white card bearing the typed legend;
Happy Anniversary, defective Detective.
sCrew you.
A wellwisher.


Bryony Wolfe is eleven when she and her sister, Daisy, are swept away by the river during a violent summer storm. On his way home, Detective Sergeant Fox is the man in the right place at the right time to rescue the girls.
Only it turns out that Fox himself needs rescuing, from his career defining failure to apprehend the Cruickshank Crew, a gang of bank robbers who, six years earlier, carried out a massive gold heist at the Cruickshank & Co bank. Even his rescue of the two sisters is overshadowed by the anniversary of this glittering golden apocalypse.
Bryony is inspired to follow in his footsteps and become a police officer. On the day that Fox retires to his bungalow in Little Midham, Bryony takes up her post with the local force.
Less than a year later after a near fatal stabbing she retreats to the quiet backwater of Little Midham, throwing herself into community policing, safely out of harms way.
Except that harm is heading her way in the shape of Ivo Regan, major domo of the Cruickshank Crew. As the history of the Cruickshank & Co robbery begins to unravel before her investigative gaze, Bryony realises it might just be Fox’s last chance to catch them.
And her chance to rescue him. That’s if she can convince him that it is never too late for the pursuit of justice.

187 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2023

About the author

Helen Slavin was born in Heywood in Lancashire in 1966. She was raised by eccentric parents on a diet of Laurel and Hardy, William Shakespeare and the Blackpool Illuminations. Educated at her local comp her favourite subjects at school were English and Going Home.

After The University of Warwick she worked in many jobs including, plant and access hire, a local government Education department typing pool, and a vasectomy clinic. A job as a television scriptwriter gave her the opportunity to spend all day drinking tea, living in a made-up fantasy world and getting paid for it (sometimes).

Helen has been a professional writer for fifteen years. Her first novel The Extra Large Medium was chosen as the winner in the Long Barn Books competition run by Susan Hill.

A paragliding Welsh husband and two children distract her and give her ample opportunity to spend all day drinking tea, nagging about homework and washing pants for England. In the wee small hours she still keeps a bijou flat in that fantasy world of writing.When not working with animals and striving for world peace, Helen enjoys the music of Elbow and baking bread. Her favourite colour is purple and if she had to be stranded on a desert island with someone it would be Ray Mears ( alright, George Clooney is very good looking but can he make fire with a stick? No. See?)

She now lives, with her family, in Trowbridge, Wiltshire where, when she’s not writing, she’s asleep. Or in Tescos.