Missing

by P.R. Burrell

Missing
The body of a young woman is found floating in the canal one cold January morning. Her right ear is missing. DS Max Eden starts the investigation which leads into involvement in gangland crime including human trafficking and prostitution. Max discovers that there is an Italian connection and she is sent to investigate this link with a colleague from a neighbouring force. Another case, concerning some missing classic cars, is found to have links to the same Italian family but are the two cases connected? Max’s love-life is painfully simplified but Max, not wanting to be alone, turns to an alternative way of finding a partner. In the midst of all this a lover from the past comes back into Max’s life. Finally, using unconventional methods, as usual, Max obtains the results and recognition she desires, despite some fraught episodes along the way.

247 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 9, 2015

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.