The Elizabeth West Mysteries Read online

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  Anthony E Thorogood

  Who the hell am I?

  I was born in London England in 1953, which makes me a baby boomer I think. On emerging into the big wide world I enjoyed life thoroughly. My two sisters and I played on the Woolwich ferry, forever crossing backwards and forwards over the Thames and then, when we got bored with that, we had races in the foot tunnel under the Thames. It's amazing what can keep a small boy happy.

  Dad ran a market stall in Woolwich's Beresford Square selling anything and everything. He was a natural Cockney salesman with all the patter that goes with it but when he was told to give it up or die from the cold, we packed up shop and migrated to Australia. Australia was great fun for a small boy from London, with snakes and kangaroos in the paddocks, unlimited sunshine and other boys who talked about nothing but sex!

  I went to school like most people do but I was dyslexic and did not do well at all. Then one day, when I was about 15, I taught myself to read and after that I read books, lots of books. I won a scholarship to the University of Adelaide and while I was at University I started writing and staging plays. I found I could write funny lines that made people laugh and I could write good dialogue.

  In the late seventies and early eighties, I worked at anything and everything. I got lots and lots of jobs all at once. I worked as an all-night waiter, a painter, junk mail distributor, gardener, builder's labourer and theatre technician to name a few. I gathered together a bundle of money and went walk about to North Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Russia, China, India, Thailand, Scandinavia, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy… and the heady heights of the northern English industrial town of Leeds.

  While on my travels I worked! I worked picking grapefruit in Israel, oranges in Greece, olives up the mountains in Crete, I was a head barman in a pub in Yorkshire, I worked in a youth hostel in the south of England, I worked all night in a soft drinks factory, I was a storeman for the department store Marks and Spencer, I was a waiter, a kitchen hand, a guinea-pig in a medical experiment and was even in a Bollywood movie in India.

  It wasn't all fun and frolics though, I came close to death's door three times in England. I was catapulted off my touring bike by a truck in London, a caravan outside Salisbury and a Mini Minor in Stockport. During this time I also wrote my first book: A Foxtrot Through India. I met a girl named Sue from Yorkshire, Sue poor lass now edits my books. I brought Sue back to Australia and we bought one hundred acres in the country and spent a year building our own home from mud bricks, then we planted apple trees and started to make cider and ran a successful business making the best cider in the world, as one customer said.

  In my youth I always enjoyed my old Dad's tales of his adventures in the navy in WWII and of his childhood hop picking in Kent, I think I got my love of storytelling from my Dad. I wrote a book on cider in 2008 after being awarded a Churchill Fellowship to travel around the world and drink and research cider. My book: Cider Drink It, Make It, Cook with It was published later that year and sold out. I followed the success of my cider book by writing a series of madcap comic extravaganzas: Bigfoot Littlefoot & West, published in 2012. I followed Bigfoot Littlefoot and West with the Jack Hamma action adventure series starting with Shakespeare on the Roof and In Bed with Jane Austen. 2015 saw me writing three romantic travel adventures in my Continental Drift series starting with Sex Sardines and Sauerkraut. Having got the travel adventures out of my system it was back to Jack Hamma with Hi Jack, Poirot Packs a Punch, Licenced to Thrill, Blind Man's Buff and more on the way. I should mention here that I have plans to write a new zany comedy called Rempit Nethis but more on that later.

  This is the bit where I now state that I am happily living the good life on our 5 acre property, on the beautiful island of Tasmania, spending my time walking, cycling, planting trees, growing vegetables and writing the odd book, very odd some people say.

  I hope you enjoy reading my books as much as I enjoy writing them.

  I'd love to hear from you:

  Click here to read my blog

  Click here to find me on Facebook

  Cheers Anthony E Thorogood

  What the hell do I write?

  Jack Hamma: Action Adventures

  Shakespeare on the Roof:

  Jack Hamma, an SAS Special Forces Commando, is sent on a top secret mission to assassinate a terrorist leader who is bunkered down on an island in the Indian Ocean. The action has only just begun when Jack and his co-assassin are ambushed by right wing terrorists. Jack is the action hero par excellence but has he met his match in the form of the beautiful Kashmere?

  In Bed with Jane Austen:

  Jack Hamma receives an emergency phone call to escort a seventeen year old girl home from school but the Russian mafia has other ideas.

  Picnic with Picasso:

  Jack awakes to find himself incarcerated in a completely blacked out dungeon. Who imprisoned him? Can he get away?

  Miss Marple Struts Her Stuff:

  Jack Hamma is at it again. This is a relentless and, dare I say it, humorous thriller where every move is a false start and every clue is a red herring.

  Hi Jack:

  Jack is in trouble, he is chained and cemented and thrown off the side of a boat - I was out cold until I hit the water. It was freezing and I immediately awoke. My senses had no time to figure out what was going on, I was in the sea, it was cold, I was heavy and sinking fast.

  Poirot Packs A Punch:

  Jack is on Stags Head Moor in the north of England. The hunt is on and he is the hunted - The bullet was so close I could feel the air move as it whizzed past my head. A second bullet came even closer, if it was possible to get even closer without hitting me. Blood was running down my forehead and into my eyes, I had been hit.

  Licensed to Thrill:

  Jack is in the Australian Bush, it's pitch black, there's a thunderstorm and an old tree crashes down, Jack takes shelter from the thunder, lightning and torrential rain and then he hears a scream.

  Blind Man's Buff:

  Jack, Kashmere and the manic Manooka are climbing a sheer cliff, two thousand feet high. Kashmere is leading, she moves up the rock face, gets a new hold, Jack looks up and the rock face begins to crumble.

  Continental Drift: Romantic Travel Adventures

  Sex Sardines & Sauerkraut:

  Texas is a feisty beauty from the USA Axel is a good looking novice from Australia. They meet at a border crossing in India, they are stranded, the border guards refuse to let them through. Axel saves the day but Texas isn't ready to owe him anything not even a thank you. Will love sparkle or will it wilt and die? 'Not as much sex as I expected but plenty of sauerkraut!'

  The Curly Wurley Sex Machine:

  Johnathon Marvel had it all. The youngest billionaire in the world according to Time Magazine but Johnathon's world collapses and his various business ventures go belly up. Jonathon does what any sane person would do in his situation, he makes a run for it.

  Love in the Land of Milk and Honey:

  Ash didn't have much of a childhood, his mother left before he was old enough to remember her and his father was a drunken bum, but Ash makes good. There is only one problem, he feels nothing for nobody. Ash takes off on an around the world marathon eventually hanging out with a couple of members of the Irish Republican Army but then he meets Adelaide a girl who knows her own mind and the fireworks begin.

  A Foxtrot Through India:

  Opposites in every way, Josh and Samantha are kindred spirits from vastly different worlds. Falling deeply and powerfully in love, their attraction to one another defies everything they believe in, they share a passion that is bound to erupt like a volcano and then, who knows?

  Bigfoot Littlefoot & West:

  A series of madcap comic extravaganzas - the Marx Brothers and Agatha Christie all thrown into one.

  Death in the Australian Outback:

  In Alice Springs, Constable Elizabeth West of the Territory Police is being interviewed for
a promotion, it is an interview like no other. There is a drive by shooting, a double suicide, a shot is fired as a boy tries to protect his mother, West is shot at by a gang of bikies, a woman goes missing and West is abducted by a ruthless killer.

  Murder Mayhem and Madness:

  Chief inspector Bigfoot wakes up in bed with a naked woman who just happens to be dead.

  Murder in the Australian Back Blocks:

  Detective Bigfoot and Sergeant Elizabeth West are stalked by a heavily armed gunman in the Australian Outback.

  Death in the Sydney Opera House:

  A young woman turns up dead on Sydney's Bonga-Bonga Beach. There are a string of murders in the Sydney Opera House…an utterly crazy comic whodunit.

  Murder Moves to London:

  Our famous trio are on exchange in London England but life isn't all tourist buses and ice creams. A bank manager is shot dead and Police Sergeant West is stalked by a serial killer.

  The Elizabeth West Mysteries:

  The precursor to the Death in the Australian Outback Series. Murder most foul comes to northern England and it is up to career woman Police Constable Elizabeth West to sort out the mess. Diabolical, haunting and a darn good read.

  Non Fiction and Other Works

  Freewheeling Tony's Bicycle Book:

  'As a cyclist I found it entertaining, challenging and in parts, so funny. Very interesting.'

  Sugar Free Cooking in Sue's Vegetarian Kitchen:

  Written in conjunction with Sue Thorogood. The eating of sugar can cause obesity, cancer, diabetes and dementia, that's the bad news, the good news is that you can create fabulous and tasty food without the little white crystals. Have a look at our cookbook it contains a brilliant collection of vegetarian recipes that even carnivores love to eat.

  Cider Drink It Make It Cook with It:

  If you like cider and want to know about its history, how to cook with it and how to make it then this is the book for you. Includes a history of cider in Australia

  Melting Moments:

  A book of comic quips about girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, working, eating, drinking, sleeping, God, life, death and the universe.

  Don't forget I'd love to hear from you:

  Click here to read my blog

  Click here to find me on Facebook

  Cheers Anthony E Thorogood