Countdown with Alison Bruce

Interviewed 28 May 2016

Alison Bruce

Alison Bruce has worked in all kinds of jobs, from admin to electro-plating and from DJ-ing to IT management. She didn't always plan to become a full-time novelist but can't remember a time in her adult life when she wasn't carrying a notebook and pen and jotting down her latest ideas.

One day she hit on an idea that grabbed her so strongly that she decided to tackle a full-length novel. It was whilst working on this first book that she realised she needed a police character and DC Gary Goodhew was born. Alison moved to the Cambridge area in 1998 and decided to make it the backdrop for the books.

Alison has also written two non-fiction books, Cambridgeshire Murders and The Billington, Victorian Executioner, both published by the History Press.

She’s a fan of vintage clothes and the rockabilly music scene, of Cambridge and Hawaii, of architecture and old cars.

Website: http://www.alisonbruce.dreamhosters.com/

Books by Alison Bruce

Cambridge Black

A young woman sets out to prove her father’s innocence of an arson blaze in which two people died and her inquiries lead DC Gary Goodhew to two more connected crimes, including the death of his own grandfather.

Reviewed on 11 November 2017 by John Cleal

The Promise

Maverick DC Gary Goodhew returns to duty after injury to help investigate the strange killing of a down-and-out and part-time informant and finds a chain of events which all point to an obsessed killer.

Reviewed on 26 November 2016 by John Cleal

The Backs

Unorthodox Cambridge DC Gary Goodhew stops at a roadblock for a burning car and finds a dead man tied to a tree with wire. A shoplifter is arrested in Leeds, a paramedic attacked at a murder scene. These incidents tie into a complicated web of sex, student prostitution and killing.

Reviewed on 14 December 2013 by John Cleal