Banking on Murder

Mark Treasure #17

by David Williams

Sir Ray Bims is about to be charged as the principal in a Caribbean bank that’s laundering international drug money. Lord Grenwood, octogenarian chairman of Grenwood, Phipps, the London merchant bankers, is appalled. Three years ago he sold the Eel Bridge Rovers Football Club – known as the Eels – to Bims. The club was founded by Grenwood’s grandfather and is still associated with the Grenwoods in the public’s mind. Now his lordship wants to buy it back to avoid the suggestion of family involvement in Bims’s disgrace. Only hours after refusing Grenwood’s offer for the Eels, Bims commits suicide – except that Detective-Inspector Jeckels of the Fulham CID concludes gradually that it was murder. And he discovers a string of people with motive and opportunity to dispose of Bims – among them the husband of Bims’s mistress; the Eels’ manager whom Bims had been about to fire; a well-known concert pianist; a curiously religious pest controller; not to mention several Eels players, and Bims’s wife and ex-wife. ‘Williams continues to astonish with his command of subtlety and assured comic invention’ Daily Telegraph ‘A nicely wily Williams whodunit’ Sunday Times

380 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.


David Williams (June 8, 1926 – September 26, 2003) was a Welsh advertising executive who became a crime writer after suffering a stroke.

Williams was born in Bridgend in Wales. He started in advertising as a medical copywriter, rising through the ranks to head one of the largest advertising agencies in the country. He suffered a severe stroke in 1977 and realised that he would not be able to return to the stresses of life in the advertising industry. He had written crime fiction in his spare time, with Unholy Writ being written before his stroke in 1976. He turned from advertising to writing "whodunnits": he wrote 23 novels in all, most featuring Mark Treasure, Oxford graduate and vice-chairman of a merchant bank, and his successful actress wife Molly. A second series of books featured Chief Inspector Merlin Parry of the South Wales Constabulary, together with Sergeant Gomer Lloyd. His books were twice shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award and he was elected as a member of the Detection Club in 1988.