About….

Graham Tonks is in his late 50s and has always aspired to write but never had (or yet made) the time.

Graham has however read a lot — predominantly crime; a lot of espionage, political and sci- fi novels along side general novels. He has favourite authors:–

• Jo Nesbo;
• John Le Carre;
• Henning Mankel;
• Arne Dahl;
• Arthur Conan Doyle:
• Iain Banks;
• Philip K Dick
• Asimov;
• Charles Cumming;
• Michael Dibdin;
• and Edward Wilson
• Graham Hurley
• M.P.Wright
• Mark Leggatt
• SJI Holliday
• Quentin Bates
• Torquil Macleod
• Ragnar Jonasson

There are others where he’s read a single book by an author – Graeme Greene’s ‘Our Man in Havana’, Ian McEwan’s ‘Sweet Tooth’ or ‘Pietr the Latvian’ by Simenon.

In most of the books he has read there is a running theme over the sequels or there is one character that grabs him and he wants to know more about them. It drives his passion for those author’s books primarily about people with plots wrapped around them; characters who ‘star’ in the books like Joe Faraday, Jimmy Suttle, Paul Winter, Kurt Wallander; Harry Hole; George Smiley; Catesby; Aurelio Zen etc!

His latest finds are Anita Sundström (MacLoed) and Ari Thor (Jónasson).

Graham has some inside knowledge of policing – he spent five years as a special constable in the UK; wearing uniform and carrying a warrant-card; trained in the way a normal copper would be – a sworn officer of the crown – arresting people, taking statements, working in custody suites, being driven in battenburg liveried cars at high-speed with blues and twos on to RTI or domestic disturbances or just on foot patrol dealing with drunks in the city-centre on a weekend-evening.

In his spare time he is an ‘IT guy’ having spent 40 years working with computers and business systems. He is a bit of a film nerd in some circles with favourites films such as Blade Runner and Field of Dreams. He particularly likes the Nordic Noir productions from a well known pointed film company and those series that BBC4 runs on a Saturday night, much to the annoyance of his fiancee.

He hopes you’ll enjoy his ‘Book of the Blog’ when he hits publish and he appreciates all feedback!

Thanks for hitting the link!