Nicholas Rhea

Nicholas Rhea is the pseudonym of author Peter N Walker. He was born in Glaisdale, a North York Moors village, in 1936. The oldest of three children born to an insurance agent and a teacher, he won a scholarship to Whitby Grammar School but left at 16 to become a police cadet in 1952, based at Whitby, North Yorkshire, England.

He began to write seriously in the late 1950s after years of casual interest, having his first short story published in the Police Review magazine. Continuing to rise through the ranks at the region’s Police Headquarters in Northallerton, he published his first novel, Carnaby and the Hijackers, in 1967.

Although he wrote 130 fiction and non-fiction books, Rhea is primarily known for his Constable series inspired by his many years of police service. He retired in 1982 to concentrate on his writing, encouraged by an interest in his Constable books from Yorkshire Television. This interest resulted in the highly popular TV series Heartbeat, which ran for 18 seasons and over 350 episodes, achieving 18 million viewers per episode at its peak.

Rhea had four children and eight grandchildren and lived with his wife in a quiet North Yorkshire village. He died in 2017.