John Connor

No not John Connor, John Connor the author.
Nearing the end of his trilogy of Karen Sharpe books, what? there's five? I know but everything's a trilogy these days.

If you like Rankin, as I do, and you're from Yorkshire, as I am, then I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy this series of books. Dewsbury even gets a mention in one of them. The books are generally set in and around Wet Yorkshire so I recognise most of the areas that get  mention.

John Connor

The author was a barrister with the Crown Prosecution Service, based in West Yorkshire and handling serious crime in the north of England. During 14 years with the CPS he has been involved in the prosecution of over 40 homicide cases, many undercover drugs enquiries and massive child abuse investigations. He divides his time between West Yorkshire and the family home in Brussels, where he is married with two children.

Phoenix

Introducing a striking series character manipulative, tough, headstrong and often emotionally cold who is damaged by a past she can never escape from but which she won't face up to. Detective Constable Karen Sharpe is intrigued by Fiona Mitchell, drug addict and informant. When the novel opens she and her partner Phil Leach are with Fiona in a West Yorkshire pub. Karen is attracted to Phil and likes Fiona but her judgement is not to be trusted; it is April 8 and Karen is drunk. The date holds a special significance for her; one she tries to blot out. But even in her drink sodden brain, a secret buried for years is fighting its way out. When the call comes through the following morning that Phil and Fiona have been found dead, murdered, she is too hung over to take it all in. She hopes it is a professional hit connected to the two drug dealers they have been investigating, but fears that it is connected to a past she shares with no one.

Playroom
On her thirteenth birthday the daughter of a Bradford Judge is kidnapped in West Yorkshire, sparking Operation Shade - a massive fifty detective investigation working against the clock to try to locate and save her. Knowing the chances of Sophie Kenyon surviving diminish dramatically after the first twenty-four hours, Detective Chief Superintendent John Munro begins to crack under the pressure of holding together an enquiry swamped with leads. Meanwhile, left off Shade because of her past encounters with Munro, DC Karen Sharpe is pursuing her own single handed enquiry into historic child abuse allegations. Twenty three year old Pamela Mathews says a local MP raped her ten years before. The task of finding corroboration looks hopeless, but Sharpe keeps at it. Anything rather than face up to her own tangled personal life. She lives with a lawyer she doesn't love and is trying to care for a child who thinks she is her Aunt. The truth is more complex and frightening, leading back to still unresolved events from a year before when her ex drug squad boss was shot dead in an incident most of West Yorkshire Police thinks she is to blame for.
A Child's game

Friday 31 December 1999. In the early hours of the morning in a luxury central Leeds penthouse, masked intruders douse a terrified victim with petrol, set him alight and throw him burning from the fifteenth floor roof garden; a human torch. DS Pete Bains is night duty CID at Milgarth when the call comes in. The body is quickly identified as Nicholas Hanley, a wealthy local property developer. Bains' attempts to pull together an enquiry stall when he cannot locate the victim's lover and next of kin, Anna Hart. Unknown to him Hart is only five miles away, but the nightmare she has been sucked into has catapulted her into a world of danger and horror unlike anything she has ever had to cope with. She was meant to be taking her 11 year old daughter on a trip to see in the new millennium. But instead of delivering a surprise visit to a Caribbean paradise, Hanley's plans bring brutal violence and danger to Anna as the real secret of his business success explodes in her face and both she and her daughter are kidnapped at gunpoint. But finding her isn't Bains' only problem. Special Branch are looking for DC Karen Sharpe. Sharpe and Bains have a bitter history. Now she has disappeared for real. Bains would like to keep it that way, but Sharpe has a nasty surprise for him. As the day progresses he is forced to re-evaluate everything he knows about her. If Karen cannot pull her shattered personality together the last day of the millennium will be the last day of her life.

Falling

Terror is only a footstep away... DC Karen Sharpe is on an emotional precipice. A year and a half ago she was the victim of a terrifying crime. Desperately trying to shelter from its effects she has been working simple fraud and theft cases in West Yorkshire CID. But the brutal murder of a young pregnant woman threatens the precarious wall she has built around herself. Drafted onto the squad to deal with the victim's six-year-old child, Karen finds herself overwhelmed by the devastating nature of the attack. As nightmares from her past start to reoccur, her relationships with those closest to her - her partner, Pete Bains, and her thirteen year old daughter, Mairead - begin to crack under the strain. An illicit relationship with her boss promises excitement and escape - a new beginning without the trappings of past horrors and guilt. But life has a savage lesson in store for her. As West Yorkshire erupts in a summer of explosive race riots, events tip Karen into the depths of the very world she has been fleeing.

Unsafe

On the day Karen Sharpe is promoted to Detective Sergeant she loses control and attacks a prisoner she is interrogating. Duly suspended, Karen is investigated and seemingly cleared, but more than a year later the incident still casts a long shadow. When the battered body of a young girl is discovered, it kicks off an inquiry which pushes Karen and a trainee DC, Marcus Roth, too close for comfort, both on and off-duty. The investigation leads to Mary Bradley, currently the carer for a helpless six-year-old boy, Andrew Farrar. As the truth of Mary Bradley's violent past emerges, the inquiry becomes a race against time before Andrew becomes just another one of her child victims. Meanwhile, with the case holding more and more personal resonance for Karen, Marcus discovers that when threatened she has a tendency to ignore the rule book and act on instinct. Before the scores are finally settled Marcus will be wondering whether Karen's legitimate world and Mary Bradley's illegitimate one are really any different...