Throttle

by P.R. Burrell

Maxine (Max) Eden is black, Lesbian, Jewish and obviously, a woman, born in a poor London neighbourhood to Ethiopian Jewish immigrant parents, who tragically died in a malicious fire when Max was eleven, leaving Max an orphan in local authority care. After troubled early teenage years Max was fostered in a loving and inspiring family and, coupled with attendance at the excellent local comprehensive school, she found a sweet spot in her life, as she also came to terms with her sexuality. With this background it might be expected that Max would experience prejudice in the police force, especially on transferring from cosmopolitan London to a small town in Middle England but though there is some subtle prejudice she again finds she has landed in relatively benign environment and even finds she has acquired some champions, precisely because of who and what she is, despite her messy love-life which sometimes threatens her professional life.
THROTTLE
During a police operation DS Max Eden is witness to the death of a young motorcycle rider; but was the boy’s death caused by the pursuing police motorcycle rider? The consequences of this incident haunt Max’s personal and professional life, ending in a distressing loss for Max. Meanwhile, a girl is murdered in her hotel bedroom and a man is killed in a hit and run accident near the same hotel, but was it an accident? And are the two deaths related? Max has another difficult case to solve where timing is crucial, opportunity and motive are not clear-cut and the deaths have many ramifications, including a link to a previous case. Almost too late, Max finally puts together the key information and, with help, prevents the escape of the murderers, but only at great personal danger. And is Max’s love-life about to get even more complicated?

253 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 27, 2013

About the author

Born in Reading, England, I grew up in what was then a small town but not too far from London. From an early age I was a 'story teller' (liar?) and I read widely both fiction (of almost all genres) and non-fiction (having an intense interest in engineering). At school, essay writing was never a chore to me - it just enabled for my imagination let rip. In my teens I wrote a lot of poetry (pubescence being what it is) and some short stories but it wasn't until I had a small book shop in Holywood (the one near Belfast) that I began writing full-length novels. I was also lecturing in Engineering, part-time, at the same time as I had the shop so I've always had this 'split-personality' of arts and sciences.
After a varied career in industry and education I have now retired and my wife and I split our time between our home in Belfast, Northern Ireland and our apartment overlooking Lake Como, Italy so I've had more time to write.

Though there was some interest from well-known publishers in my early books none of the conventional publishers 'bit the bullet' to offer a deal to publish my books so when Kindle came along I made the decision to self-publish some of the books as eBooks as this also gave me control over the whole creative writing process, which also appealed to me; being something of a control freak.

The first book I published as an Amazon Kindle eBook was the crime novel 'CUT' which became the first part of a series of the 'Max Eden Crime' series, set in Middle England. Each book has a crime theme described by the one word title and features the unconventional, black, lesbian, detective, Max Eden as she rises through the ranks, experiencing professional and personal problems due to taking on difficult and complex cases, sometimes complicated further by her unconventional love-life. Currently there are seven books in the Eden Crime series: CUT, BLAG, THROTTLE, BURNT, MISSING, SHOT and RECKLESS.

My other fiction books are the thrillers Stormy Monday and Sword of Fire with the latter drawing on my experiences as an engineer and manager in the defence industry and the former is an ode to blues music and the era I grew up in with a noir twist.

My non-fiction books are published under my full name: Paul Burrell and are the accounts of two long distance, 1,000 miles plus, cycling trips, mainly along the the rivers and canals of France. These books are Paul's Mille Miglia and Paul's Mille Miglia (Part Deux).

All the above mentioned books are available as Kindle eBooks.