J P Hidcote

I have had an eclectic career which has ranged from the construction industry to the British Government Civil Service to Delivery of technology projects in the international banking sector.

My experience of interviewing Benefit Fraud suspects proved invaluable while drafting the Police interview segments of his first novel The Bowling Five. Set in London, Glasgow and Dunbartonshire in late 1983 The Bowling Five is the first of a series of novels based around the career of Edwin Coulter in the British Intelligence Services from the 1980's to the end of the 20th century. The overall series title is The Coulter Confessions.

The second book in the series is the The Gortin Paradox which relocates the story to County Tyrone in the Autumn of 1984. I chose Tyrone as the location because I spent many happy childhood holidays there. The juxtaposition of a bucolic community that in many ways seemed unchanged since the 1920's with urban areas that were trapped in an intense 20th century conflict always fascinated me. Especially the sense of a public and a private world with strict barriers between the two. I hope that the events in The Gortin Paradox give the reader a sense of that complex world which is rapidly disappearing.

Book III The Downings Awakening is set in Western Donegal and introduces the hero and the reader to a very different Ireland. A beautiful rural landscape with many complex social and political undercurrents. The novel is a story of betrayal and loyalty where the hero has to think on his feet to survive.

The fourth book The Donegal Conversion takes the hero to the limits of his endurance as he struggles to cope with a tidal wave of trauma. Under extreme pressure his personality is severely tested as faces a once in a lifetime challenge.

I am currently working on the fifth book in the series The Lubeck Diversion which takes the hero on a torrid journey from Cyprus to Germany while he recovers from his Irish adventures. It takes the hero in new directions and reunites him with old friends in a world which has changed dramatically.