Chris Nickson: Unsung Heroes of Crime Fiction by Lynne Patrick

An occasional series which looks at the work of authors whose books qualify as bestsellers,
but who still aren’t quite as famous as they deserve to be.

Chris Nickson

Historical crime fiction has a huge following. Ellis Peters, S J Parris, the late and much-lamented C J Sansom, even Agatha Christie, though her novels were contemporary when she wrote them – these are just a few authors whose books evoke the past.

And then there’s Chris Nickson, author of more than thirty novels, all crime, all historical, most of them set in Leeds, and published to great acclaim in the USA and enthusiastic reviews closer to home in the UK – but perhaps not the first name that comes to mind.

Chris and I go back a long way – all the way to his first published novel, The Broken Token. It heralded a series of seven plus a novella, which charted the working life of Richard Nottingham, Constable of Leeds in the 18^th century. Then came Gods of Gold, first in another series, ten books this time, still set in Leeds but now in the late 19^th century, following the career of Tom Harper all the way from detective inspector to chief constable. Harper’s wife Annabelle is a suffragist, and Chris cites her as his favourite character in all his books. Gods of Gold is set around the Leeds Gas Strike in 1890. ‘She tapped me on the shoulder,’ he says, ‘and told me she was there at the time, and offered to tell me about it.’ 

The Harper series came to a conclusion in 2023 with Tom Harper’s retirement, but a second series set in 19^th century Leeds sixty years earlier has been running in parallel since 2019 and will continue for a while. This time the action predates the formal police force; protagonist Simon Westow is a thief-taker, employed on a freelance basis to recover stolen property – though murder raises its ugly head in most of the cases he takes on.

History is something of a passion with Chris, especially the history of Leeds. He rarely misses an opportunity to explore a new decade in his home city, and as well as the longer series there are five more books, all based on his reading and research. Two feature enquiry agent Dan

Markham, set in the 1950s; two more follow PC Lottie Armstrong in the 1920s and ’30s; and there’s a single outing for Detective Sergeant Urban Raven in the ’30s. But a couple of times he has strayed beyond his home city, and his work has followed. His other life as a music journalist took him across the Atlantic for twenty years, and the result was Emerald City and West Seattle Blues, featuring journalist Laura Benton; and when he settled in Chesterfield for a few years on his return to the UK, he became fascinated with the town’s most famous feature, the Crooked Spire. The result was a series of four books featuring John the Carpenter, who discovers a talent for detection as well as his chosen trade. 

And now there’s Cathy Marsden, a police sergeant during the Second World War, seconded to a crack squad of major crime investigators because of her intimate knowledge of Leeds. Cathy has her first outing in April 2025, in No Precious Truth, and plans are afoot for her future.

All this and more in just a decade and a half adds up to a substantial body of work, and Chris Nickson garners more fans with each new book. So why isn’t he as famous as the historical crime writers listed above? That’s the biggest mystery of all. 

CHRIS NICKSON – BIBLIOGRAPHY

Richard Nottingham series: 

The Broken Token

Cold Cruel Winter

The Constant Lovers

Come The Fear

At the Dying Of The Year

Fair and Tender Ladies

Free from All Danger

Convalescence (novella, eBook only)

Tom Harper series

Gods of Gold 
Two Bronze Pennies
Skin Like Silver
The Iron Water
On Copper Street
The Tin God
The Leaden Heart
The Molten City
Brass Lives
A Dark Steel Death
Rusted Souls

Simon Westow series

The Hanging Psalm
The Hocus Girl
To the Dark
The Blood Covenant
The Dead Will Rise
The Scream of Sins
Them Without Pain

John the Carpenter series

The Crooked Spire
The Saltergate Psalter
The Holywell Dead
The Anchoress of Chesterfield 

Laura Benton series

Emerald City
West Seattle Blues

 Dan Markham series

Dark Briggate Blues
The New Eastgate Swing

WPC Lottie Armstrong series

Modern Crimes
The Year of the Gun

Standalone – Urban Raven

The Dead on Leave

 Cathy Marsden series

No Precious Truth
Published 1 April 2025    

The first in a brand-new WW II historical thriller series introduces Sergeant Cathy Marsden – a female police officer working for the Special Investigation Branch – who risks her life to protect the city of Leeds from an escaped German spy!

Leeds, 1941. As the war rages across Europe, Police Sergeant Cathy Marsden’s life since she was seconded to the Special Investigation Branch has remained focused on deserters and home-front crimes. Until now. 

Things take a chilling turn when Cathy’s civil servant brother, Dan, arrives from London with a dark secret: he is working for the XX Committee – a special MI5 unit set up to turn German spies into double agents. But one of these agents has escaped and is heading for Leeds, sent to destroy targets key to the war effort. Suddenly Cathy and the squad are plunged into an unfamiliar world of espionage and subterfuge. 

With the fate of the country and the war in the balance, failure is not an option, and Cathy must risk everything, including her own life, to stop a spy.                                             

 https://chrisnickson.co.uk