MICHAEL DANE
THE FRANK McBRIDE SERIES
THE RUTLAND CONNECTION
The first in a fast-paced international crime thriller series, that’s just a little bit different.
Is England’s smallest county hiding its greatest criminal? Customs legend Frank McBride has been leading teams of investigators targeting gangs of drugs smugglers for decades. Taking out John Pyke’s team of criminals is just another operation until suddenly things become interesting.
Why has Pyke’s team suddenly become so professional? Who is pulling the strings? And why?
From Breda in the Netherlands via Dover and Lincoln all paths lead back to a mysterious figure in Rutland whose methodology is antiquated but faultless and whose motives are unknowable.
McBride finds himself engaged in a duel with an unseen opponent and will need all his experience and skill to unravel The Rutland Connection.
THE RUTLAND IDENTITY
When George Bowman, a Rutland publican is found dead at the bottom of his cellar steps the police dismiss it as a tragic accident, but local pensioners Frank McBride and Bernard Taylor aren’t so sure. The two unlikely friends bring two lifetimes of espionage and surveillance experience to the topic and commence an investigation of their own
Their suspicions centre on a Swiss couple, Joachim and Hannah Keller. To unlock the mystery Bernard sends his granddaughter, Emma, on an undercover mission. Frank engages the assistance of his old colleagues in Customs and Excise.
Together they stumble upon a web of intrigue involving fraud, smuggling and murder. But Frank and Bernard come from different worlds and act upon what they discover in very different ways.
THE RUTLAND VOLUNTEER
Who is the man with no past who walks into MI6 offering to provide information on dissident
Irish republicans?
Who is behind the network of criminals smuggling millions of cigarettes into the country?
Is Frank McBride really going to come out of retirement and risk his life to answer both
questions?
And can Bernard Taylor intervene to avert disaster?
Official investigations, secret operations and a private inquiry run side by side until they collide in a dramatic climax.
THE RUTLAND LEGACY
A gang of disaffected young men from Dresden stumble across a hoard of gold.
A new celebrity resident arrives in A quiet Rutland village.
A neo-Nazi network of lawyers and assassins enters the story.
And unexplained journeys are being made by an aircraft designed for secrecy and stealth
from a tiny airfield.
Veteran investigator Frank McBride sees it all unfold, but he has a separate mission of his own.
THE RUTLAND ASSASSIN
An elderly East End villain swears revenge on those he blames for his arrest. Scrap metal dealers keep disappearing into Poplar Docks. And a professional assassin has been given the task of committing murder in a tiny Rutland village.
Meanwhile…
Joe Lake and his team enrol Ron Godsmark as an undercover agent as part of their VAT fraud investigation. Frank McBride is hosting the world shove ha’penny championships. And Bernard Taylor is manipulating the pub quiz for his own ends… again.
Shots fired in Leighton Parva! Informants, fraudsters, crooked lawyers, mafiosi, reckless young women on motorcycles and a sociopathic killer with a chance to settle old scores.
Because the assassin was a professional… just not that sort.
THE RUTLAND EXCHANGE
Frank McBride is grieving, and thirsting for revenge. His friends form a conspiracy to protect him from himself.
As McBride buries himself in the unlikely duties of chairing Leighton Parva's parish council, a routine intelligence report lands on Joe Lake's desk and sets an unlikely coalition in motion: a retired spymaster, two siblings from rival intelligence agencies, and a Customs investigator who has problems of his own.
The trail leads from the backstreets of Tilburg to the sunlit squares of the Dordogne — and a showdown in a village bar proves that Bernard Taylor's brand of skulduggery never really retires.
McBRIDE UNDERCOVER
McBride wants to do what? The man's gone mad!
London, the mid-1980s. Frank McBride is divorced... again. He had been turned down for promotion... again.
He's a customs officer, not a social worker, but sometimes he forgets. He's made a promise and promises are they only thing he has left to keep.
He volunteers for a job nobody else wants: going undercover to infiltrate the Cassidy organisation, a Bermondsey drugs network with tentacles reaching all the way to the Costa Calida. To earn the trust of a retired kingpin enjoying his sunshine retirement, McBride does something no sane officer would ever attempt, and the fallout puts more than his cover at risk.
Wry, dangerous and utterly authentic, McBride Undercover is the origin story fans have been waiting for: how a jaded, chain-smoking customs man became the legend at the heart of the series. Perfect for readers of gritty, character-led British crime with a dark comic edge.
Other Works
The Pickle Factory
A law enforcement memoir, full of humour.
Joe Lake is a customs officer. Blue blazer, brass button, smart peaked cap. But what he really wants is to join Customs and Excise's Investigation Division, to drive around in fast cars, kicking down doors and feeling collars. One day, unexpectedly, he gets his chance.
The Pickle Factory is based upon the author's own experience as an investigation officer in the 1990s.