Former Lothian and Borders Police detective Peter Ritchie has produced another story of crime and its consequences during two days in the life of a sex worker in Edinburgh.
Maxie Welsh works the streets of Leith and her world is collapsing through addiction and mounting debt. A meeting with her only friend on the streets leads to a train of incidents that opens up new possibilities until her life is threatened and events spin out of control. Police, gangsters and friends all play their part in the drama of Maxine’s Story.
The Novella follows on from his series of highly acclaimed authentic crime fiction books including ‘ Noble Cause’, ‘Where No Shadow Falls’, ‘The Shortest Days of the Year’ and ‘Red Sky in the Morning’ which cover the career of senior detective Grace den Herder.
Peter  joined the police service 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. Following his retiral 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.
‘Maxine’s Story’ is available from Amazon.
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.
