Canal bridge Newton Harcourt - Leicestershire
Canal bridge Newton Harcourt
Leicestershire
The beautiful rural canal network which meanders through Leicestershire first gave author Ben Beazley the initial idea for his novel CROOKED MILE due to be published in early summer 2009 by Picnic Publishing. Set in the late 1880’s, it is a murder mystery based in the town of Kelsford situated mid-way between Leicester, Derby, and Sheffield. (No, don’t reach for your atlas, you won’t find it.) When a unit of the Fenian ‘Irish Republican Brotherhood’, under the leadership of Connor Devlin, choose to steal the payroll of the Shires Canal Company on a rainy December night in 1887, they set in motion a series of events which no one could at the time have foreseen. Investigating the robbery and murders that follow, takes detective Tom Norton of the Kelsford Police and the woman with whom he becomes inextricably linked, the seductive Ruth Samuels, into a dangerous web of intrigue and deceit. 
Within a short space of time, Norton and Ruth find themselves deeply involved in the workings of a Jewish underground organisation ‘The Pipeline’ bringing refugees such as the psychopathic Eugene Leschenko to Europe from Tsarist Russia, and the illicit gun-running activities of the Fenians. The fast moving thriller takes the reader on a spell binding journey of mystery and suspense from the small Midlands town of Kelsford, across the icy Carpathian Mountains, back to the docklands of mid-summer New York, before returning through the sinister streets of Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel to it’s gripping conclusion. Perfect for any picnic read!
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