Jeff Barton Mysteries

Barton is with the Greater Manchester police and there are fifteen titles in this series.Jeff leads a varied team of detectives solving crime in and around Manchester and though he comes across as a genial man, his instincts as a senior police officer are as sharp as steel. He’s a single parent of his son Toby and has a male nanny, a ‘manny’, called Brendan who not only looks after Toby but is also Jeff’s housekeeper. Jeff’s wife died of an aneurism when Toby was a baby. She was of Chinese heritage and Jeff has made sure that Toby has a good relationship with his grandparents who’ve also taught him to speak Mandarin. Jeff has had the odd girlfriend here and there, but he’s never got over his wife’s death. Not really. Not where it counts. And he’s more or less decided to wait until Toby is grown up and on his own way before he turns is attention back to his personal life. When you meet him in the pages of each book, I’m sure there’ll be ladies out there who would want to ‘rescue’ him. But sorry girls, he doesn’t need it. Life for him is bringing up Toby as best he can, being the best police detective he can be, and it’ll be a while yet before he pays any attention to his own personal needs.The last one in this Barton series will be out next year and I think that the story I’ve come up with will provide a fitting end to a character who will always remain one of my absolute favourites.

But who knows, after the last one, he might be back one day