Detective turned author Peter Ritchie will be reading from his latest book ‘Red Sky in the Morning’ as part of Book Week Scotland at Musselburgh Library this Saturday at 3pm.
The book is the third in the Grace den Herder trilogy and follows on from ‘Noble Cause’ and ‘The Shortest Day’ both of which were widely acclaimed by readers.
His vast experience gives him a unique insight into the world of serious and organised crime and ‘Red Sky in the Morning’ will be available from early December.
Peter started his working life at 15 as a deep sea fisherman before joining the police service and moving through the ranks of CID/Murder Squad/Regional Crime Squad in Scotland. He then went on to manage the Organised Crime Unit in the National Criminal Intelligence Service in London where he ran a multi-agency team drawn from various branches of the law enforcement and the security services. This was a unique concept at the time and Peter travelled to many parts of the world in this role. He was subsequently appointed as the UK Liaison Officer to Europol in The Hague where he spent five years.
He returned to Lothian and Borders heading the Major Crime Team before taking on an advisory role for a project in Croatia. After retiring from the police he worked on a number of private investigations before spending the next few years as part of the public inquiry team looking into the murder of the LVF leader Billy Wright in the Maze Prison. He also worked on a public inquiry into the death of eighteen patients in the Vale of Leven Hospital from a hospital acquired infection.
Today Peter kindly took time out of his busy schedule to speak to the Edinburgh Reporter about the forthcoming book. “The response I’ve been getting for the stories about Grace have been very encouraging, and people really seem to engage with the characters. The third book brings in villains from Newcastle, Edinburgh and a particularly nasty female from Glasgow. The story involves women trafficked from Eastern Europe and the men who prey on them. I’ve tried again to make the stories authentic with no super heroes. Like the first two books I’ve tried to thread in dark humour through the story to give it the feel of what it’s really like in these investigations. This story begins with the disappearance of an undercover officer and the chain reaction that leads from that event. People have been asking me what next? I only intended to do the three books about Grace but she seems to have a following so I’m certainly giving it some thought.”
Photograph by www.jcmackintosh.com
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
