In The Mood

About the Book

The death of John and Betty Laine in 1943 at the height of the 2^nd World War initiates a chain of events stretching over 42 years that would include murder, child abuse and sexual blackmail.

            The story begins in 1985. A case involving drugs and the death of a police colleague in a burning building awakens a buried nightmare that threatens the sanity of New Scotland Yard Detective, Philip Graves. Grave’s enforced leave comes just as he receives news that his father, a retired police sergeant, has been viciously attacked in what is thought to be a random assault. Still haunted by the burning death of his partner, he returns home determined to know the facts about his father’s attack.

Graves quickly learns of his father’s involvement in an unusual case concerning the 25-year old mummified body of a man found encased inside a bridge column. His father has more than a passing interest in the case and Graves questions the connection between the case and his father’s assault.

Over the days that follow Graves conducts his own investigation, learning the identity of the mummified man and that he apparently died in 1953, along with 3 other men in a fire at Harrington Orphanage.

“How does a corpse from 1953 become a corpse again in 1960?” Graves asks himself. 

Graves slowly pieces together the past for each victim. He learns that his father’s assault is connected with the body in the bridge, but the reason stems from the past, to a time when twin boys were left in the care of Harrington orphanage following the death of their parents, John and Betty Laine. Graves unearths facts that he wished were left buried in the past, facts that would change his own life and everything that he understood to be true.

About the Author

Paul Hupton is a life-long admirer of the styles of traditional crime writers, such as Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and contemporary writers such as PD James, Ruth Rendell and James Herbert. It is his interest in such authors and their attention to detail that has inspired him to write his first crime novel, In the Mood.

Paul has been married to Eileen for the last 25 year and they have 2 children, Jonathan and Luke. He holds an honours degree in engineering and is a Chartered Engineer, a part of his experience and background that he put to good effect in creating this intriguing story.

Paul considers this to be one of several cases for New Scotland Yard detective Philip Graves and he is already writing a second book on his adventures, with a third in the development stage.

He can be contacted by email at Paul@hupton60.wanadoo.co.uk