Peter Grainger

Although I've always been a reader, I must admit that I first got into crime novels via television series such as Morse and Frost. It seemed odd initially, reading about characters that I had only watched before, and I found that I didn't always agree with what the producers and scriptwriters had done - but then I probably am one of life's disagree-ers.

Having independently published three novels on Amazon's Kindle, I decided that my next project could be a crime novel of my own. In some ways it was easier to write than my general fiction, the conventions of the genre making some decisions straightforward, but I still spent a lot of time developing the characters in 'An Accidental Death'; to me, character comes before everything else in fiction.

I think that Smith himself is a recognisable individual. He is old-fashioned in some ways and has a sense that he has been left behind as the police force is modernised. He makes mistakes, too. And yet his wealth of experience and the understanding of people that stems from that experience mean that he is still able to pursue the wrongdoers intuitively, when more conventional methods fail. He is far from the first fictional detective to have these qualities, of course - there is nothing new under the sun. In the end, though, I grew to like him enough to perhaps give him another case to solve soon. And then another and another, until now there are ten DC Smith investigations. And, of course, Smith also features in the offshoot series, the Kings Lake Investigations.

The other three novels? I published them under a different name. They are not crime fiction at all but as several readers have said that they would like to take a look, I will now list them here: 'Afon', 'The Rink' and 'Asher' by Robert Partridge. Sorry but my author page won't let me post a direct link.