The First Time Ever: original, character-driven crime fiction

Ted Darling was about to kill a man. For the first time in his life…

You’ve never met a copper like Ted Darling. He’s small, quiet. He doesn’t smoke. He’s packed in the booze. But he’s a Specialist Firearms Officer. With black belts in four martial arts.

Then a shift in circumstances makes him swap guns for the CID. His first case is the brutal murder of a teenage girl. His new boss thinks he can wrap it up easily. Ted has doubts over the suspect.

Has he made the right choice in switching jobs? Or has he, as his Firearms boss warned him, committed career suicide?

Grab your copy NOW to find out why everyone’s talking about the Ted Darling crime series.

What the readers say:

These are the most compelling police-procedurals of any series I’ve come-across- and a large cast of supporting characters who manage to be multi-faceted even in supporting roles. The book is perfectly capable of standing alone on its own merit; my husband read it even though he has not read the series and enjoyed it so much he has started through the series. The author’s characters are charming and believable. She draws on a vast knowledge gained as a case-tracker for CPS and her scenarios are detailed and feel very accurate. If you like detailed police-procedurals and well-thought-out mysteries to be investigated, this book is an excellent start on a bloody good series. Highly recommended.

I was gripped by this prequel from the word go! The opening sentence is a real hook. Brilliant beginning. We learn about several ‘firsts’ in Ted’s life and it fills in a great deal of background about the main character of Ted Darling and what makes him tick. It starts with him as a sergeant and a trained Specialist Firearms Officer and tracks his progress to CID.
The writing is, as usual, tight and keeps the plot moving along nicely which I enjoy. I didn’t want to put the book down after I had started reading it. Having read a number of the Ted Darling novels I recognised a few of the names. If you haven’t you have a treat in store. Usually I would read books in order but I was very happy to go back to the beginning and find out more about one of my favourite Detectives. I’d love to see Ted on the telly! I can only hope.

Wow. I got this book almost by 'accident,' and I started to read it and couldn't put it down. I binged read this series. The main character of Ted Darling is wonderful. He's unusual, very caring, fair, driven, has a lot of demons but he's not hard-bitten. And I love his relationship with Trev. It's utterly lovely and adds such a great balance to the everyday life of Ted and the cases that his team work. All LM Krier's characters have interesting pieces to them. I'm not describing this series very well. But it grabbed me, I still think about the characters often, I miss them. LOL. I want another book please. I find this series riveting. It's been one of my best finds this year I think. I highly recommend it.

The First Time Ever (now also available as an audio book) was written retrospectively as a backstory as the many avid readers of the Ted Darling Crime Series wanted to know what happened before. It can be read as a stand-alone or at any point in this popular crime fiction series . The original first book written in the series was Baby's Got Blue Eyes.

L M Krier is a pen name of former journalist (court reporter) and freelance copywriter, Lesley Tither, who also worked as a case tracker for the Crown Prosecution Service. The First Time Ever is the retrospectively-written prequel to the popular Ted Darling crime series. Other books in the series are Baby's Got Blue Eyes, Two Little Boys, When I'm Old and Grey, Shut Up and Drive, Only the Lonely, Wild Thing, Walk on By, Preacher Man, Cry for the Bad Man and Every Game You Play. Lesley also writer travel memoirs and humour as Tottie Limejuice.