Bill Slider series
This week I’m recommending our reissues of the first ten books in the Bill Slider series, which were written in the nineties by prolific author Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. Slider is a Detective Inspector in Shepherd’s Bush, London, and he has a great, realistic police team round him as they solve some pretty bizarre murders. The million puns and intellectual quips make these books fun if sometimes baffling, so they are comfortable police procedurals to delve into, but the murders are often grisly enough to give them an edge. Bill is a flawed character in the way of all cops, and absolutely likeable for it. If you haven’t discovered these, dive in!
Thalia Proctor
'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES
A Bill Slider Mystery
Detective Inspector Bill Slider - middle-class, middle-aged, and middle-of-the-road - is never going to make it to Scotland Yard. He's spent most of his working life at Shepherd's Bush nick, and stopped minding long ago about being passed over for promotion.
But then the unidentifiable body of a woman turns up on his patch, and suddenly Slider and his partner Atherton have a chance to prove themselves.
As they wrestle with an investigation, in which the only clues are a priceless Stradivarius and a giant tin of olive oil, everyone - most of all Slider himself - is wondering whether this latest crisis will make or break the steely-eyed detective.
Praise for the Bill Slider series:
'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail
'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times
'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times
'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Bill Slider Mystery
The lot of the working copper is getting harder: new regulations, regular rousting by the top brass, a budget tighter than a Victoria corset and a DC who thinks he's in a John Le Carré novel makes it a trying time for Detective inspector Bill Slider.
Then when a noted womanizer dies in mysterious fire in a sleazy motel and the whole of his murky past comes to light, Slider begins to question whether this was suicide... or murder.
And that's not the only thing Slider is questioning. As soon as he's solved the motel mystery, Bill is going to have to put his own house in order...
Praise for the Bill Slider series:
'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail
'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times
'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times
'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Bill Slider Mystery
There's a changing of the guard at Shepherd's Bush police station. But unfortunately for Bill Slider, incoming Detective Superintendent Barrington has something to prove and no desire to make friends with his subordinates.
Luckily - or rather, unluckily - Slider has work to be getting on with, and soon the discovery of a dismembered corpse plunges him into west London's seedy underworld.
But something's not sitting right. Why did Barrington have an axe to grind with the old Detective Superintendent? The more Slider learns, the less he likes it, and the less he can believe that his job is ever going to win him friends in high places ...
Praise for the Bill Slider series:
'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail
'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times
'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times
'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Bill Slider Mystery
A call-out to a murder saves Detective Inspector Bill Slider from having to finish his canteen lunch, but it presents him with the problem of a dead conductor. In life Sir Stefan Radek was seriously famous and terminally unpleasant, but neither of these facts seems reason enough to gun him down.
But as Slider delves into the megastar's private life he finds there's no shortage of suspects, as everyone seems tastelessly glad that Radek is dead. Lies, lovers past and present, and a hotbed of squabbles and financial shenanigans complicate the already tangled case.
And with Slider's lost love, Joanna, a witness to the crime, his own life's jigsaw puzzle seems suddenly as complex as tracking down a most unlikely murderer...
Praise for the Bill Slider series:
'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail
'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times
'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times
'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Bill Slider Mystery
With his on-off lover Joanna away with work, Detective Inspector Bill Slider almost welcomes a call-out to the BBC TV Centre at White City. Roger Greatrex, celebrated music critic and opera aficionado, appears to have topped himself - only minutes before he was due to appear live on a quiz show.
But there are signs that the body has been interfered with, and Slider suspects murder. One fellow panellist is known to have quarrelled violently with Greatrex. two members of the production team have motives, and nobody in the building has a proper alibi.
Slider is under pressure to make an arrest, and all his instincts are at odds with the evidence. But a dangerous killer is on the loose, and could kill again...
Praise for the Bill Slider series:
'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail
'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times
'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times
'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Bill Slider Mystery
Detective Inspector Bill Slider is back at work with a thumping headache, courtesy of the last villain he apprehended. But he is minus Atherton, a friend and colleague, who's still recovering from his injuries.
Slider was hoping for a quiet week, but a murder at a night club plunges him into the underworld of entertainment to question table-dancers, prostitutes, pimps and cabinet ministers. And when it appears that this murder could be linked to another unsolved case, Slider is left with more questions than ever.
What with Atherton's slow recovery and his replacement's unhealthy interest in Slider, the DI has enough to fuel his headache for the foreseeable future. But the old grey matter won't be denied; doggedly and with a whimper, Slider starts to unravel the truth...
Praise for the Bill Slider series:
'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail
'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times
'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times
'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Bill Slider Mystery
Detective Inspector Bill Slider has always been keen on architecture, and The Old Rectory is the kind of house he would give anything to won. But the dead body of Jennifer Andrews in her shallow grave rather spoils the view.
The case looks straightforward enough: a provocative woman murdered by her violent and jealous husband. But as the investigation proceeds, new suspects and motives keep crawling out of the woodwork. It seems there is something rotten at the heart of the community surrounding the lovely old house.
When Slider finally gets a confession, it's from a wholly incredible source. It seems in life there is always more going on than meets the eye...
Praise for the Bill Slider series:
'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail
'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times
'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times
'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Bill Slider Mystery
Award-winning ex-Guardian hack Phoebe Agnew has a reputation for attacking the police in print. So when her strangled body is found in her chaotic flat, Detective Inspector Bill Slider must abide by the impartiality of the law and find her killer.
On the day of her death the seemingly undomesticated Agnew cooked an elaborate meal for someone. It may have been her old friend and reputed lover, the government advisor Josh Prentiss, but his powerful Home Office friends are pressuring Slider to look elsewhere.
Unidentified fingerprints, missing items, alibis offered when not required - Slider is under pressure to untangle this web of lies and hidden relationships. For Phoebe Agnew was concealing a secret, which someone ass willing to kill - and kill again - to protect ...
Praise for the Bill Slider series:
'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail
'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times
'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times
'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Bill Slider Mystery
The stabbed body of a well-dressed man is found slumped on a swing in a children's playground in the heart of Detective Inspector Bill Slider's patch.
From the seedy pubs of Shepherd's Bush through the brothels of Notting Hill to the mansions of Holland Park, Slider and his team unearth the victims' sordid lifestyle of debts, drugs and dodgy deals. It soon becomes clear that their prime suspect is a crime baron who will stop at nothing to keep his identity hidden.
However, Slider is not only up against a resourceful villain, but is also fighting to stop the case being taken off his hand. He's so busy he hasn't a spare moment. But when the case is all over, he'll finally have the time to hear what his on-off girlfriend has been trying to tell him...
Praise for the Bill Slider series:
'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail
'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times
'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times
'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Bill Slider Mystery
It looks as though Inspector Bill Slider has a serial killer on his hands: 'the Park Killer', as the media so innovatively label him, attacks his victims in London's public parks, and when Chattie Cornfield is murdered while out jogging, the pattern fits.
But as Slider and Atherton investigate, it is Chattie's life rather than the killer's that poses questions. There's a startling anomaly between her ritzy lifestyle and her modest income. There are friends who loved her, a sister who hated her, men who thought they knew her, and a mysterious package that poses more questions than it answers.
Who was the real Chattie? Where was she on the last day of her life? And was it love, hate or avarice that drove the hooded figure to kill her?
Praise for the Bill Slider series:
'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail
'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times
'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times
