The DCI Steel Mysteries are crime novels led by Detective Chief Inspector Steel and Detective Sergeant Moss.
Edinburgh born and bred, DCI Mike Steel has been with Lothian & Borders Police since leaving school, and is a highly experienced Police Officer with his own views on effective policing. DS Robin Moss was born and bred in Liverpool and, after attending university, joined the police on the fast-track Accelerated Careers Development Programme and following a stint with Merseyside Police, where initial policing experience was gained, transferred to Lothian & Borders Police.
BOOK ONE ~ Lest You Be Judged introduces DCI Mike Steel and his new sergeant, DS Robin Moss, a fast-track university graduate. Set in Edinburgh in January, 2000, Steel and Moss are faced with solving the brutal killing of a High Court Judge. Piecing the jigsaw together, they discover there has been an escape from a secure hospital, and when a Priest is murdered, they realise they are hunting a serial killer. The jigsaw pieces are a perfect fit until Moss uncovers one missing, and horrifying, piece.
AN EXCERPT — the first three chapters as a PDF — is available here
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Reader Reviews of Lest You Be Judged
Undiscovered Scotland : “Fast paced . . . an excellent read.”
Amazon [
]: “ . . .a gripping, dark and unpredictable thriller.”
Amazon []: “(A) great read. Hard hitting and thought provoking.”
Amazon []: “. . .on a par with Rankin’s Rebus and Ed James Cullen . . . definitely worth a read.”
BOOK TWO ~ Reap As You Sow unfolds three months later, in April 2000. When a mutilated body is washed up on Portobello Beach, followed by an explosion in a nearby street, DCI Mike Steel and DS Robin Moss start an investigation which leads them from Edinburgh to Latvia and into a world where nothing is at it seems. In so doing, Moss has to question her professional — and personal — relationship with Steel whose concentration, and methodology, is far less than expected.
AN EXCERPT — the first three chapters as a PDF — is available here.
BUY NOW at Amazon (Paperback & Kindle).
Reader Reviews of Reap As You Sow
Undiscovered Scotland : “. . .an outstanding and thoroughly enjoyable read . . . one we recommend very highly.”
Amazon []: “ . . .(A) great read . . . well constructed plot, carefully researched.”
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A QUESTION THAT HAS BEEN ASKED more than once is, “Why, are Lest You Be Judged and Reap As You Sow set in the year 2000?”, and there are, hopefully, simple answers for that.
DCI Mike Steel is a Detective in Lothian & Borders Police with its Headquarters at Fettes Avenue, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Lothian & Borders, which served four Territorial Divisions — Edinburgh was A Division — was merged with the seven other regional police forces in Scotland, on April 1st 2013, to form Police Scotland, the second-largest police force in the United Kingdom, after London’s Metropolitan Police Service.
Setting Lest You Be Judged in 2000 — thirteen years before Police Scotland arrived — had, broadly, two reasons. Despite the sheer size of the area covered by their force, a police officer still has a ‘beat’, and DCI Mike Steel’s beat is Edinburgh; in particular a beat based at the Headquarters of Lothian & Borders Police. The new Police Scotland may cover a huge area, but in these novels, DCI Mike Steel’s beat is narrowed as he works Edinburgh, from Fettes (and often from his own home).
Then, why 2000 and not, say, 2010? Simply, if set too close, an amalgamation such as Police Scotland would have been a continual ‘noise’ within Lest You Be Judged. Therefore, for the introduction of DCI Mike Steel, at a time well before any amalgamation would have been daily canteen talk, the year 2000 (a new century beginning) was chosen to set the particular time for the novel. And then, there is Inspector John Rebus.
The superb Inspector Rebus books are a series of detective novels by Ian Rankin. He admitted he had made a mistake when he placed John Rebus ‘in real life/time’, ageing with each new novel. Rebus first appeared in 1987, retirement is mandatory at 60 and, at the launch of Police Scotland – of which no novelist appears to know the workings – Rebus was still then (and beyond) very skilfully working. That however was a small warning sign, and so, Lest You Be Judged begins in January, 2000, and then – here, imagine the film scene with “Three Months Later” – DCI Steel and DS Moss reappear in April, 2000, at Portobello Beach in Reap As You Sow.
So, again hopefully, this answers, “Why, are the DCI Steel novels set in the year 2000?” Other questions? . . . just get in touch.