The Crime Writer’s Casebook by Stuart Gibbon and Stephen Wade

Val Penny ♦ November 25, 2017 ♦ 2 Comments

Today I am delighted to welcome my friend, Stuart Gibbon to the blog. Stuart is a retired DCI from Lincolnshire Police. He is dicussing his new book, The Crime Writer’s Casebook which I am sure will be of great assistance to authors who write either modern day or historical crime novels.

Thank you for inviting me to feature on your blog, it’s great to get the opportunity to tell people about The Crime Writer’s Casebook and how it came about.

Before I do that, I guess I should say a little about myself and my background. I grew up in the north-east of England and travelled to London as a 16 year old to join the Metropolitan Police cadets. Just over two years and a lot of hard graft later, I passed out from Hendon training college as a Police Constable and was posted to Wembley police station. I spent the next eighteen years working in uniform then CID before deciding to re-locate.In 2000 I transferred to Lincolnshire Police where I continued my career, mainly in CID, at various ranks. As a Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) I was part of a Regional unit investigating Murder and other serious crimes. At that time I was one of a limited number of specially-trained Senior Investigating Officer’s (SIO) in charge of these investigations.

I retired from the police service in 2012 and set up a crime writing service (GIB Consultancy) to help authors with police actions and procedures to ensure that their work is accurate and authentic. I am regularly contacted by a number of writers who will either send me a list of questions to address or a section of their work to fact-check. Most of my contacts are crime writers but some have diversified into psychological thrillers from romance or science fiction. It’s a fascinating role and one which gives me immense satisfaction.

In 2014 I chaired a panel of crime writers at a literature festival in Lincoln. One of those panel members was Stephen Wade, a crime historian with vast experience in the history of crime. We got chatting and thought that it may be a good idea to write a book together using Stephen’s encyclopaedic knowledge of crime throughout the centuries and my experience of criminal investigation. Fast forward to 2017 and we’re delighted to say that ‘The Crime Writer’s Casebook’ is due to be published in early December.

Anyone interested in crime, historical or modern-day, whether as a reader or writer, will find something useful in the book. As crime is such a popular genre, true and fiction, I hope that ‘The Crime Writer’s Casebook’ will cater for a variety of audiences. If you are a writer who wants to make sure that your police procedures are accurate then you will find a wealth of information from rank structures to useful acronyms. Chapters include ‘The Murder Investigation’, ‘Custody Procedure’, ‘DNA’, and the ‘Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE)’.

For those who prefer historical crime, there is a section on the history of crime as it has evolved. The book contains true crime case studies including death by arsenic (1794), the murder of Mary Clarke (1921), the murder of Melanie Road (1984) and Britain’s youngest double murderers (2016).

I’m really looking forward to the publication of ‘The Crime Writer’s Casebook’ and hope that those who read it enjoy it as much as we enjoyed writing it. The book is available to order on Amazon at https://t.co/DjFPOgMiyI

Thanks for having me Val and all the best for ‘Hunter’s Chase’.

Myown crime novel, ‘Hunter’s Chase’ with which Stuart gave me invaluable assistance, is set in Edinburgh and available to order in paperback and pre-order in e-book on Amazon now. amzn.to/2AIYIRz . It is published by Crooked Cat Books with a launch date of 02.02.2018.