David Williams

Page Updated: 24/09/03

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David Williams - Page 1

04 Aug 03

Promoting Wales through Murder With all of the recent interest in regional detective TV series, isn't it about time that Wales got in on the act? And who better to start with than Cardiff-based Detective Chief Inspector Merlin Parry.

by David Williams

About the Author (Photo (c) Brenda Williams)

Bibliography

First British Edition Allison & Busby (2003)

Practise to Deceive
The cold-blooded murder of Kevin Rees, Auxiliary Nurse at the private Howell Clinic for stroke victims, is greeted with apparent sorrow by all who knew him - well, nearly all. ‘A born nurse’ is the summation of his professional qualities by colleagues and patients alike. But is Dr Edwin Howell, maverick neuro-psychiatrist, and co-owner of the clinic set in the shadow of Llandaff’s Anglican Cathedral, just saving face when he anxiously divines the crime was the work of a burglar?
Only when DCI Merlin Parry rejects such a facile solution and digs deeper into Rees’s background do the unsavoury aspects of the young man’s life surface. The police investigation reveals details of Rees’s time not only at the clinic, but also in the army, at St Mark’s Hospital in London, and more especially with the London Ambulance Service. Was Denis Ingram, the rich and successful industrialist, now a patient at the Howell Clinic, somehow indebted to Rees? And why is Ingram’s possibly unfaithful wife intent on deceiving the police about what she knows of Rees - something she has in common with the clinic’s matron, as well as the wife of the head gardener, and the paramedic Stacey Fowler?
The action moves from Cardiff to a manor house near Chepstow, to London’s Festival Hall, and to the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Bristol, along the way directly involving Perdita Jones, Parry’s fiance, Lucy, the eldest daughter of DS Gomer Lloyd and a string of beautifully crafted characters. Practise to Deceive is an intriguing and elegant mystery from the pen of an accomplished writer.
Praise for David Williams
`Readers longing for a rattling good puzzle to cosy up with will be well served here’ Kirkus Reviews
`One could hardly have a more pleasing example of this type of detective story’ Evening Standard
`Good plot, well-concealed clues, and the whole put together with wit and elegance’ Daily Mail
`Superbly written with a depth of feeling rare in crime fiction’ Birmingham Post
`This is vintage Williams, subtle and sly’ Hampstead & Highgate Express
`Witty, well crafted, entertaining sleuthing of the highest order’ Ulster News Letter

First British Edition Hale (2001)

Criminal Intentions
David Williams’s whodunits have a huge and devoted following, recruited through the ingenuity of his plotting and the wit, style, and sheer elegance of his writing. His brilliant short stories, never collected in one volume before, offer in addition the rich classical virtue of a superbly contrived twist in every tale.
His favourite gold-digging spouses get delicious outings, as do the perpetrators of two fascinating insurance scams and the members who so nearly bring disgrace on a London gentleman’s club. The tricking, on the Riviera, of an innocent Wimbledon spinster, the assassination of an ex-president and the hilarious arrangements for the demise of an unfavourite rich relative by a scrumptious Welsh harpy, are glorious examples of the genre.
All these and other gems in this fifteen strong collection make for a compulsive and entirely satisfying virtuoso entertainment.
‘Williams maintains suspense while keeping the masks of comedy and tragedy spinning like tops.’ Sunday Times
An antiques dealer happens upon a stolen jade dish, a pharmacist becomes an accomplice to murder and a man tries to kill his best friend in Criminal Intentions, a collection of 15 stories from as many different perspectives by Welshman David Williams (Unholy Writ and 16 other Mark Treasure mysteries). While the stories' abbreviated length prevents Williams from developing fully realized characters, his final moment plot twist make them compulsively readable.’ Publishers Weekly

Paperback - HarperCollins (1999)

First British Edition HarperCollins (1998)

Suicide Intended
Freddy Gibbon was a blackmailer, drug pedlar, thief and bully. An accomplished juvenile crook, in the sense that he had never been caught, he looked forward to a widening and profitable career in the blacker arts while still an eighteen-year-old schoolboy studying for A levels albeit without the least desire to gain any: but there was a dark reason for that too.
So when Freddy's naked body is discovered in the snow-covered basement area of Modlen College, a private sixth-form crammer in the country near Cardiff, there is more secret joy than open sorrow amongst that group of pupils, teachers and servants who have reason to be relieved at his passing. But deciding which of their number might have brought that passing about is the question eventually presented to Chief Inspector Merlin Parry and Sergeant Gomer Lloyd. Because what first looked like suicide is adjudged by the pathologist to have been a well-organized murder.
This is the fifth Parry mystery, a teasing whodunit, with plausible characters, stylish writing, a flavouring of wit - and a very unexpected solution.
''David Williams's Welsh detectives, Detective Chief inspector Merlin Parry and his placid Sergeant Gomer Lloyd, are old friends to members of the police procedural fancy, and have less twitchy private lives than most fictional sleuths…. It takes a little longer for Parry and Lloyd to find out whodunnit in this vintage Williams, but it's worth waiting for the surprise' James Melville, Ham & High
'A fine civilized and fair-play police procedural, with the ending a surprise unless you spot the cunningly concealed clues. As usual with a Williams novel, all the characters ring true' William F.Deeck, CADS

First British Edition HarperCollins (1997)

A Terminal Case
The parishioners of Bryntaf are Far from shocked when the vicar of St Samson's announces he's divorcing his wife. Some are surprised, though, at his plans to remarry-an attractive young widow - and keep his job. But his intentions are thwarted when the widow, a hospital consultant, is brutally' murdered, her body mutilated with one of her own scalpels. There is no shortage of suspects: the vicar's wife, her student son, the consultant's jealous accountant, and at least one spinster of the parish who everyone agrees would die for the vicar, but would she kill for him? Only the wily Chief Inspector Parry is sharp enough to detect the subtle motive which finally exposes the true culprit. In this fourth mystery featuring Merlin Parry and Sergeant Lloyd, David Williams further refines the balance of his engaging and elegantly written Welsh series
'A Terminal Case is David Williams's fourth - and undoubtedly his best… The opening, in the classical mode, is excellent; and, after an absorbing investigation, we arrive at a highly surprising denouement - all in all, one could hardly have a more pleasing example of this type of detective story.' T.J.Binyon, Evening Standard
'I have a soft spot for Williams who seems to me to be in direct line of descendance from Michael Innes, and as far as I am concerned you can't have a better antecedent. Like the Mark Treasure series this Welsh-based saga is laced with humour that is never at the expense of the plot' Wendy Lawrence, Crime Time
'In the four years since David Williams gave up writing about his merchant banker - detective Mark Treasure - he has improved with every book he has written…. The opening chapter where the vicar breaks the news to his wife is superbly written, with a depth of feeling rare in crime fiction' F.E.Pardoe, Birmingham Post
'The fourth engaging, well engineered crime novel featuring DCI Merlin Parry' Books Magazine
'The author tackles the situation with enthusiasm, providing genuine characters who fit well into the Welsh village scene, exceptionally good dialogue throughout, and detectives who carry out the investigation efficiently without the personal deficiencies and mental tie-ups so often associated with fictional detectives.
Without question, David Williams writes well and his stories, well scripted and planned are of a high standard' The Criminologist
'David Williams has, highly readably, established Cardiff as a hotbed of poisonous gossip.' Gerald Kaufman, The Scotsman
'… it is a conventional British detective story, literate and comfortable, well plotted and well observed… David Williams writes pleasingly about the kind of people he knows and we know' Anthony Lejeune, The Tablet

First British Edition HarperCollins (1997)

Dead in the Market
See Review by Liz Lees
See Review by Jill Allam
A neurotic, barren wife acquires a baby illegally.
Seventeen years on, with her husband now a prosperous Welsh businessman, someone discovers her secret and blackmail begins. A murder follows, on a Saturday morning, in Cardiff’s covered Central Market in front of a thousand shoppers - except, astonishingly, there are no witnesses.
Chief Inspector Merlin Parry here tackles a baffling human drama that intrigues right up to the nail-biting dénouement, the whole leavened with masterly characterisation and polished wit.
"Dead In The Market is a pleasure to read" T.J.Binyon, Evening Standard
"A thought-provoking novel that is also an excellent detective story." William F.Deek, CADS
"a deadly, cliff-hanging ending" Donna Leon, Sunday Times
"This highly enjoyable and deftly executed tale by David Williams is a fine example of the modern British police procedural in the traditional mould." Liz Lees, Tangled Web UK
"Witty, well-crafted, entertaining sleuthing of the highest order by the creator of an earlier popular detective, Mark Treasure." Terry Sharkle, Ulster News Letter
"The promise of the first book is enhanced by a robust sequel of superbly crafted thriller writing," said Michael Boon, reviewing the second Inspector Parry mystery in the Western Mail.

About The Author
David Willlams is a Welshman, born in Bridgend, and educated at the Cathedral School, Hereford, and St John's College, Oxford, where he took a degree in modern history, interrupted by three years service as a Royal Navy officer. Head of the large London advertising agency that he had founded, and a frequent TV and radio broadcaster, at age 50 he was advised to leave commerce following a serious illness. Two years after his recovery, he was established as a full time writer.
He has published 22 whodunits, with two of the titles shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Gold Dagger Awards. The first 17 books feature Mark Treasure, London merchant banker and amateur sleuth. ('As always, Williams maintains suspense while keeping the masks of comedy and tragedy spinning like tops.' The Sunday Times,) Then, in 1994, with LAST SEEN BREATHING, he began a parallel series about Detective Chief Inspector Merlin Parry of the South Wales Constabulary. ('Good plot, well concealed clues, and the whole put together with wit and elegance.' The Daily Mail)
David Williams is a Governor of Pusey House, Oxford, a Freeman of the City of London, and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspapermakers. He has served on the Council of the Advertising Association, the Advertising Standards Authority, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, the Stroke Association, the Impact Foundation, and was for many years Deputy Chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind. He plays golf, and is interested in historic buildings, especially churches, and 18th and 19th century art and music. He was elected a member of the Detection Club in 1988, and of the Welsh Academy in 1996. His archive is at the Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University. He lives with his wife at Wentworth in Surrey. They have two married children.
DAVID WILLIAMS COMMENTS:
I write whodunnits which are aimed to be above all credible, civilised entertainments, incidentally informative (a sometimes tiresome characteristic with Welsh writers), and to lace them with humour - the last as an enduring legacy from two friends and mentors, Bruce Montgomery and Kingsley Amis. The stories ought to possess spontaneity because I do the plots as I go along. I begin with a group of people, and a situation ultimately leading to murder, but I rarely know the identity of the killer until the penultimate chapter. Reviewers are often complimentary about the plots, so perhaps there is something to be said for my perforce unstructured method, though there are times when I find it more taxing than stimulating. Stately homes, old churches, Welsh people, and eccentric clergymen feature a good deal in the stories because I can always find hidden depths in all of them. The major and intended difference between the protagonists in my two series of books is that the banker Mark Treasure can play God in some of his cases, while Detective Chief Inspector Merlin Parry, being bound by police procedure, is not supposed to.

Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

Practise to Deceive (Allison & Busby, 2003) Aug 03 ( DCI Parry & DS Gomer Lloyd)

Criminal Intentions Short Stories (Hale, 2001)

Suicide Intended (HarperCollins, 1998) HarperCollins Pbk Nov 99 ( DCI Parry & DS Gomer Lloyd)

A Terminal Case (HarperCollins, 1997) Harper Pbk 1998 ( DCI Parry & DS Gomer Lloyd)

Dead in the Market (HarperCollins, 1997) ( DCI Parry & DS Gomer Lloyd)

Death of a Prodigal ( 1995) HarperCollins Pbk 1996 ( DCI Parry & DS Gomer Lloyd)

Last Seen Breathing (HarperCollins, 1994) ( DCI Parry & DS Gomer Lloyd)

Banking on Murder (HarperCollins, 1993) ( Mark Treasure)

Planning on Murder (HarperCollins, 1992) ( Mark Treasure)

Treasure by Post (Macmillan, 1991) ( Mark Treasure)

Prescription For Murder (Macmillan, 1990) ( Mark Treasure)

Holy Treasure! (Macmillan, 1989) ( Mark Treasure)

Treasure In Oxford (Macmillan, 1988) ( Mark Treasure)

Divided Treasure (Macmillan, 1987) ( Mark Treasure)

Treasure In Roubles (Macmillan, 1987) ( Mark Treasure)

Murder In Advent (Macmillan, 1985) ( Mark Treasure)

Wedding Treasure (Macmillan, 1985) ( Mark Treasure)

Advertise For Treasure (Collins, 1984) ( Mark Treasure)

Treasure Preserved (Collins Crime Club, 1983) ( Mark Treasure)

Copper, Gold and Treasure (Collins, 1982) ( Mark Treasure)

Murder For Treasure (Collins, 1980) Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Chivers Jan 00 ( Mark Treasure)

Treasure Up In Smoke (Collins, 1978) ( Mark Treasure)

Treasure By Degrees (Collins, 1977) ( Mark Treasure)

Unholy Writ (Collins, 1976) ( Mark Treasure)