The Peterborough Evening Telegraph

Crime fic­tion in Peter­bor­ough

- By Kelly Bar­nett Austria · Iceland · London · London Records · Waterstone’s · Peterborough · Blue Murder · Blue Murder

A Peter­bor­ough man landed a four-part crime book deal af­ter tak­ing re­dun­dancy from his 20-year IT ca­reer.

Tony J Forder, of the Or­tons, saw re­dun­dancy as the chance he needed to make a bold ca­reer change.

In Novem­ber last year he com­mit­ted to writ­ing, be­fore win­ning a deal with Blood­hound books in Fe­bru­ary. A two-book deal ex­panded to four, and the 59-year-old found him­self at­tend­ing book sign­ings, such as ‘The Darker Side of Fic­tion’ on Satur­day, Oc­to­ber 7, and at Water­stones, Peter­bor­ough on Thurs­day, Oc­to­ber 12.

The first in his se­ries, ‘Bad to the Bone’, is set in the Peter­bor­ough area. The story fol­lows the dis­cov­ery of a skele­tal body in woods near Bret­ton and the re­sult­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Lo­cal land­marks like the cathe­dral and brick pits get a men­tion in the thriller.

In prepa­ra­tion for his first book, Tony drew in­spi­ra­tion from lo­cal pol­i­tics and the phys­i­cal land­scape. He said: “I had one scene in my head that re­fused to budge, so I jumped into my car with a pad and pen and drove to the weir at Or­ton Mere, about five min­utes from my home. There I breathed in the at­mos­phere and made pages of notes.”

Orig­i­nally from Lon­don, Tony made Peter­bor­ough his home more than 30 years ago, and his pro­tag­o­nist sim­i­larly warms to the area.

His sec­ond book, ‘De­grees of Dark­ness’, was pub­lished on Tues­day, Septem­ber 19. The third novel is sched­uled for re­lease in Novem­ber, a fast-paced ac­tion thriller called ‘Scream Blue Mur­der’.

In the first half of 2018, Tony will re­lease his Peter­bor­ough-based fol­low-up ‘The Scent of Guilt.’

In an­tic­i­pa­tion of his re­cent book sign­ing, Tony ex­pressed thanks to the Bridge Street Water­stone’s for their sup­port of lo­cal au­thors.

He said: “The man­ager, Jac­qui, and staff there are ex­tremely knowl­edge­able, and al­ways happy to have a chat. They are an im­pres­sive team.”

Tony still con­sults for the Greater Peter­bor­ough Uni­ver­sity Tech­nol­ogy Col­lege (GPUTC) to keep his IT skills sharp, but as pos­i­tive re­views pour in, the fu­ture looks good for Tony J Forder and his Peter­bor­ough crime fic­tion.

What’s more, with the con­fir­ma­tion of ‘The Darker Side of Fic­tion’ re­turn­ing to the city in 2018 and 2019, the fu­ture looks bright for lo­cal tal­ent.

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