Peter Tickler

Peter studied at Oxford and has lived most of his life in Oxford and Abingdon, so it was inevitable that when he started to write crime, he would set it (for the most part) in contemporary Oxford. His first three crime novels (the Blood in Oxford series) feature an irascible DI Susan Holden. Later a house-sitting private detective Doug Mullen takes centre-stage in four more, but with an increasingly unstable Susan Holden re-emerging as both a thorn in his flesh and an edgy ally.

Blood in Oxford

Blood on the Cowley Road
Blood in Grandpont|
Blood on the Marsh

Doug Mullen Novels

Dead in the Water
White Lies, Deadly Lies
Dead in Oxford
The Oxford Murders

He has been praised for the authenticity of his Oxford (‘He has a wonderful gift of creating geographically factual settings for his fictional characters’ – Oxford Times) as well as the pace of his stories (‘deliciously thrilling and wildly unpredictable’ – Oxford Today).

Peter has also written two stand-alones, The Girl who Stole the Apple, and The Tickler’s Jam Murders. The latter is a striking Country House mystery set in 1919, but in no way cosy. This was inspired by the fact that his great-grandfather T G Tickler ran Tickler’s Jam and won a major contract to supply jam to the troops in the trenches.

Silvia Vetta described it thus:

‘I enjoyed The Tickler’s Jam Murders. The opening felt like a teaser – a classic Agatha Christie whodunit set in a manor house. Subtly that changed and issues of class, gender and domestic violence impinged on the plot. The setting just after WW1, was relevant too. The aftermath of the war and its effects on society as depicted in the novel, felt authentic. It’s an entertaining page turner but not shallow entertainment – a good read!’

He writes a regular column for Mystery People and regularly gives talks all over the place – at festivals, libraries, U3As and even one of Her Majesty’s Prisons (they let him out after two hours).