Pel and the Missing Persons

by Mark Hebden

A masked gang rob a supermarket at Talant, a home-made bomb is found at the local airport, and the body of an old man is found on the motorway near Mailly-les-Temps...

Plus what is the connection between a fearful lawyer and the fatal stabbing of a Scottish tourist? On top of which, Daniel Darcy, trusted deputy to Chief Inspector Pel, has been suspended on suspicion of taking bribes. Pel really has his hands full this time.

Moody, sharp-tongued and worrying constantly about his health, Inspector Pel ensures that no case goes unsolved, in these mordantly witty French mysteries.





‘ Totally convincing. ’  Financial Times

‘Mr Hebden has created  a nice band of flics .’  Oxford Times

‘Pel and his procedurals are  some of the best things since Maigret .’  Observer

‘Chief Inspector Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel,  as well rounded a character as Maigret or Van der Valk .’  Punch

‘ Impeccable French ambience, unexaggerated flics, and a well-constructed solution.  Hebden proves again that few understand Gallic cops better than English writers!’  The Times

>‘Some characters grow as their saga lengthens and Pel… is one of them. You might say  he is ripening along with the grapes .’  Police Review

‘…written with  downbeat humour and some delightful dialogue .’  Financial Times

‘… all is most cunningly contrived  and dovetailed into a coherent plot.’  Irish Times

‘A  thoroughly entertaining read .’  Evening Standard

‘The  best Gallic sleuth since Maigret .’  London Mystery Selection

274 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 4, 2021

About the author

Mark Hebden is the pseudonymn of John Harris, who is well-known for a series of best-selling adventure stories. He wrote 35 books under his own name, 27 under the name of Mark Hebden and a further 10, mostly of a military nature, under the pseudonymn of Max Hennessy.

He was born in Yorkshire in 1916 to Mr and Mrs E J Harris who had The Stag Inn at Herringthorpe. He attended Rotherham Grammar School and after leaving there became a reporter on the Rotherham Advertiser before moving on to the Sheffield Telegraph. He also did some freelance work with a colleage in Cornwall and at various times worked as a cartoonist, travel courier and history teacher.

In World War II he served as a corporal in the RAF and was seconded to the South African Air Force. Indeed, it was said that he served two navies and two air forces during the course of the war!

He returned to the Sheffield Telegraph after the war where he as a political and comedy cartoonist and he remained with the paper until the mid-1950s.

On 31 January 1947 he married Betty Wragg at St Michael & All Angels Church, Northfield, Rotherham. The couple had a son, Max, in 1950 and a daughter, Juliet, in 1950.

He had his first novel, 'The Lonely Voyage' published in 1951 but it was in 1954 that he really came to the fore when his 1953 novel 'The Sea Shall Not Have Them' was made into a successful film. Thereafter he turned full-time to writing novels.

He wrote his first novel under the pseudonymn Mark Hebden, 'What Changed Charlie Farthing', in 1965 and his first novel featuring his French detective Chief Inspector Pel, 'Pel and the Faceless Corpse', was published in 1979. His daughter Juliet was to continue the Pel series after his death under the pen-name Juliet Hebden.

The family moved to West Wittering, near Chichester in Sussex in 1955 and he continued to write his novels from there.

He died on 7 March 1991 with his last book, 'Pel and the Sepulchre Job' being published posthumously in 1992.

The protrait accompanying this article is a cartoon self-portrait.