I have just published three new crime fiction books and am actively working on the fourth in the series.
The Inspector Harcourt Mystery Series
The Inspector Harcourt Murder Mysteries form a new series of contemporary, character-led crime stories featuring the history-loving Inspector Harcourt of the West Mercia police, set in a changing rural Worcestershire
The Proofreader
In the spring of 2017, a middle-aged man – Andrew Patch – returns to the Worcestershire village of Castle Upton, close to the Cotswold Hills, for the birthday celebration of a childhood friend.
Andrew is found dead after attending the event leading to a police investigation led by DI Harcourt. Is there a connection with a previous incident near the village forty years earlier? The police treat Andrew Patch’s death as murder but can find no motive for it nor evidence to link the two cases until help arrives from a most unexpected source.
This is the first in a series of contemporary, character-led crime stories featuring Inspector Harcourt of the West Mercia police, set in a changing rural Worcestershire. With a passion for history, Harcourt is haunted by events from his own past, while his irascible boss - Detective Superintendent Rupert Hunter-Wright – also has his own, personal mystery to solve.
This title was published in August 2024 in both print and Kindle formats and available in all amazon stores. Just search for this title or Mark Rasdall in any amazon store and the titles will appear. You can download the digital version to a Kindle or Kindle app on PC, iPad, iPhone and other devices.
The book is available in Kindle Unlimited too.
The print edition is also available from all good bookshops, worldwide.
ISBN: 9798337549101
Andrew is found dead after attending the event leading to a police investigation led by DI Harcourt. Is there a connection with a previous incident near the village forty years earlier? The police treat Andrew Patch’s death as murder but can find no motive for it nor evidence to link the two cases until help arrives from a most unexpected source.
This is the first in a series of contemporary, character-led crime stories featuring Inspector Harcourt of the West Mercia police, set in a changing rural Worcestershire. With a passion for history, Harcourt is haunted by events from his own past, while his irascible boss - Detective Superintendent Rupert Hunter-Wright – also has his own, personal mystery to solve.
This title was published in August 2024 in both print and Kindle formats and available in all amazon stores. Just search for this title or Mark Rasdall in any amazon store and the titles will appear. You can download the digital version to a Kindle or Kindle app on PC, iPad, iPhone and other devices.
The book is available in Kindle Unlimited too.
The print edition is also available from all good bookshops, worldwide.
ISBN: 9798337549101
Water, Slaughter Everywhere
Set in the autumn of 2017, this is the second in a series of contemporary, character-led crime stories featuring the history-loving Inspector Harcourt of the West Mercia police, set in a changing rural Worcestershire.
Is the drowning of Gary Jones in a lake at Pickerton, a Worcestershire village in the shadow of the Malvern Hills, accidental or not?
Gary was at the lake with four other friends and, when one of these - Zoya Agarwal - appears to walk straight into the River Severn in Worcester and drowns, the police led by DI Harcourt are called in to investigate. Are the two incidents connected? If so, how?
This title was published in August 2024 in both print and Kindle formats and available in all amazon stores. Just search for this title or Mark Rasdall in any amazon store and the titles will appear. You can download the digital version to a Kindle or Kindle app on PC, iPad, iPhone and other devices.
The book is available in Kindle Unlimited too.
The print edition is also available from all good bookshops, worldwide.
ISBN: 9798337642680
Is the drowning of Gary Jones in a lake at Pickerton, a Worcestershire village in the shadow of the Malvern Hills, accidental or not?
Gary was at the lake with four other friends and, when one of these - Zoya Agarwal - appears to walk straight into the River Severn in Worcester and drowns, the police led by DI Harcourt are called in to investigate. Are the two incidents connected? If so, how?
This title was published in August 2024 in both print and Kindle formats and available in all amazon stores. Just search for this title or Mark Rasdall in any amazon store and the titles will appear. You can download the digital version to a Kindle or Kindle app on PC, iPad, iPhone and other devices.
The book is available in Kindle Unlimited too.
The print edition is also available from all good bookshops, worldwide.
ISBN: 9798337642680
Family Fiction
This is the third in the series of contemporary, character-led crime stories featuring the history-loving Inspector Harcourt of the West Mercia Police.
In the summer of 2019, in the Worcestershire village of Bishop’s Lacy near the Herefordshire border, the funeral is taking place of Brenda Wilkins, late wife of the village butcher.
Is there a connection to the subsequent murder of her neighbour, Kathleen Hodges, being investigated by DI Harcourt and his team? If so, what bearing does it have on the futures of the Wilkins siblings, still squabbling over Brenda’s will?
This title was published in August 2024 in both print and Kindle formats and available in all amazon stores. Just search for this title or Mark Rasdall in any amazon store and the titles will appear. You can download the digital version to a Kindle or Kindle app on PC, iPad, iPhone and other devices.
The book is available in Kindle Unlimited too.
The print edition is also available from all good bookshops, worldwide.
ISBN: 9798337737485
In the summer of 2019, in the Worcestershire village of Bishop’s Lacy near the Herefordshire border, the funeral is taking place of Brenda Wilkins, late wife of the village butcher.
Is there a connection to the subsequent murder of her neighbour, Kathleen Hodges, being investigated by DI Harcourt and his team? If so, what bearing does it have on the futures of the Wilkins siblings, still squabbling over Brenda’s will?
This title was published in August 2024 in both print and Kindle formats and available in all amazon stores. Just search for this title or Mark Rasdall in any amazon store and the titles will appear. You can download the digital version to a Kindle or Kindle app on PC, iPad, iPhone and other devices.
The book is available in Kindle Unlimited too.
The print edition is also available from all good bookshops, worldwide.
ISBN: 9798337737485
The Inspector Harcourt novels are available in bookshops in Worcester - at Script Haven and the Tourist Information Centre - and can be ordered from any Waterstones store.
I previously published a full-length mystery novel set in Norfolk.
Tales from Waxling Beach
Set over 19 days in 2007, this is the story of PR man, Nick Golding, whose London agency, Prindle Massey, is on the brink of huge changes as the technology-led social media revolution threatens their very existence. The agency’s American owners decide to embrace new communications strategies but with the damage limitation offered by trying them out on charities and those in need first.
Approaching middle age, Nick is finding it hard to relate to any of this, or even his own family. Behind his apparent cynicism is an unexplained fear of loss and he finds himself looking for clues to his unease from a childhood holiday, forty years earlier in 1967.
Meanwhile, his wife, Nora, a marine archaeologist, who is similarly dissatisfied with their marriage, offers to help with an excavation at Waxling Beach, on England’s North Norfolk Coast, as part of the History and Mystery television series. The villagers’ livelihoods there are similarly threatened by their historic foe - the sea - leading the imposing, former RNLI coxswain, St John de Criel, to enlist Prindle Massey to help with their PR campaign for greater flood defences.
As the incessant waves erode ever more layers of truth, so Waxling’s history of natural flooding and drowning is gradually revealed to be one accompanied by greed and self-interest, during which Nick makes his own, unexpected discovery of a tragic past, and resolves to try to prevent events from repeating themselves. However, it might already be too late for the one young girl who is closer to him than any other.
As Nick’s family seeks repair, so he realises that, regardless of time, place and motive, the message of love and understanding is everything; all else is just driftwood on the beach.
This title was published in August 2017 in both print and Kindle formats and available in all amazon stores. Just search for this title or Mark Rasdall in any amazon store and the titles will appear. You can download the digital version to a Kindle or Kindle app on PC, iPad, iPhone and other devices.
The book is available in Kindle Unlimited too.
The print edition is also available from all good bookshops, worldwide.
ISBN: 9781975712983
Approaching middle age, Nick is finding it hard to relate to any of this, or even his own family. Behind his apparent cynicism is an unexplained fear of loss and he finds himself looking for clues to his unease from a childhood holiday, forty years earlier in 1967.
Meanwhile, his wife, Nora, a marine archaeologist, who is similarly dissatisfied with their marriage, offers to help with an excavation at Waxling Beach, on England’s North Norfolk Coast, as part of the History and Mystery television series. The villagers’ livelihoods there are similarly threatened by their historic foe - the sea - leading the imposing, former RNLI coxswain, St John de Criel, to enlist Prindle Massey to help with their PR campaign for greater flood defences.
As the incessant waves erode ever more layers of truth, so Waxling’s history of natural flooding and drowning is gradually revealed to be one accompanied by greed and self-interest, during which Nick makes his own, unexpected discovery of a tragic past, and resolves to try to prevent events from repeating themselves. However, it might already be too late for the one young girl who is closer to him than any other.
As Nick’s family seeks repair, so he realises that, regardless of time, place and motive, the message of love and understanding is everything; all else is just driftwood on the beach.
This title was published in August 2017 in both print and Kindle formats and available in all amazon stores. Just search for this title or Mark Rasdall in any amazon store and the titles will appear. You can download the digital version to a Kindle or Kindle app on PC, iPad, iPhone and other devices.
The book is available in Kindle Unlimited too.
The print edition is also available from all good bookshops, worldwide.
ISBN: 9781975712983