Tony Bassett

Tony Bassett is a former journalist who worked on regional and national newspapers in Britain for more than 40 years. He mainly reported on crime, show business, human interest and consumer topics. Now retired, he writes crime fiction.

Tony is best known for his series of novels set in the West Midlands featuring Detective Chief Inspector Gavin Roscoe, an experienced detective and family man, and his sergeant, law graduate and resourceful problem-solver Sunita Roy.

His latest book in the Detectives Roy and Roscoe series, IT NEVER RAINS (Book 6), concerns a gang who raid a Premier League footballer’s mansion while he is away at a match. His stepson is kidnapped and a bodyguard shot dead. As storms and floods create havoc, can astute Detective Sergeant Sunita Roy track down the missing teenager and bring the criminal mastermind behind the raid to justice?

The previous book in the series, HEIR TO MURDER (Book 5) was judged first in the Mystery and Suspense (Police Procedurals) category in the American Fiction Awards in June 2024.

Other books in the series (in order) are: MURDER ON OXFORD LANE; THE CROSSBOW STALKER; MURDER OF A DOCTOR; and OUT FOR REVENGE.

A collection of the first three books was published in May 2024 under the title THE MIDLANDS MURDERS: Detectives Roy & Roscoe box set (Books 1 – 3). The whole series has been issued by London publishers The Book Folks.

Tony has also written a stand-alone thriller, SEAT 97, about a man shot dead at a London concert hall (published by The Book Folks) while two further works (the crime novel Smile Of The Stowaway and the spy novel The Lazarus Charter) were published by The Conrad Press.

Tony first developed a love of writing at the age of nine when he produced a junior school magazine. A few years later, his local vicar in Tunbridge Wells staged his play about Naboth’s Vineyard. At Hull University, Tony was judged Time-Life Magazine student journalist of the year in 1971.

Tony, who has five grown-up children, is a Life Member of the National Union of Journalists. He lives in South-East London with his partner Lin.