When a neighbour from hell comes to a sticky end, a plucky cop refuses to accept the obvious. Miles Kenworth loves to play his rock music at a deafening volume. The other residents of his apartment block are not so keen.One day, after hearing a commotion, Miles’ next-door neighbour discovers his body lying in a pool of blood. Standing next to the corpse is Jake, the man who lives upstairs. It should be an open and shut case for DS Sunita Roy. But with Jake vehemently protesting his innocence, she decides to dig deeper.Most of the residents wanted Miles shut up for good. But was it really Jake who flipped, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Tony is a former Fleet Street journalist.
SEAT 97 is his fifth novel to be published by The Book Folks, an independent London publisher specialising in crime fiction. The previous four books were all part of Tony’s Midlands series which feature Detective Chief Inspector Gavin Roscoe, an experienced detective and family man, and his sergeant, law graduate and resourceful problem-solver Sunita Roy.
The most recent book in this series, Out For Revenge (Book 4), was published in October 2022. It concerns notorious gangland boss Tadeusz Filipowski – a man with numerous enemies who plans to expand his Midlands drug empire on his release from jail. Among his detractors is a corrupt detective who has in the past helped the drug baron keep one step ahead of the law. When Filipowski is found dead, it presents DS Sunita Roy from Heart of England Police with a tough case to crack. For so many had a grudge against the dead man that she is overwhelmed by suspects. She could normally count on the full support of her boss, DCI Gavin Roscoe, in her investigation into the criminal life of Filipowski. But he has been tasked with an equally crucial investigation – gathering enough evidence against the corrupt detective to bring him to justice. Eventually, it becomes clear the two inquiries are inextricably linked. But, as the two detectives pursue events, they realise someone has been plotting a brutal revenge. A revenge that threatens to put the lives of one of the detectives in great peril.
The previous novel, Murder Of A Doctor (Book 3), was released in May 2022. It was the third mystery tale in the series.
This book concerns a well-respected family doctor who sets off on a morning run and is later discovered dead in woods near his home in Warwickshire. Ambitious young detective DS Roy is determined to solve the case. But the only clues are an expensive necklace and a bus ticket, andthere are many suspects.
Murder On Oxford Lane (Book 1) and The Crossbow Stalker (Book 2) were published in the spring of 2022. Murder On Oxford Lane is about the disappearance of a property tycoon from a sleepy Warwickshire village. Middle-aged DCI Roscoe and his sergeant, DS Roy, are confronted by suspicious deaths as they struggle to uncover what has happened to the businessman.
The Crossbow Stalker concerns a man being targeted in a hate campaign who begs police for help.Then he is shot dead with a crossbow bolt and a handkerchief embroidered with the letter C found stuffed in his mouth. The detectives face an uphill battle to catch the killer.
Tony is currently working on a fifth book in the Midlands series which concerns a man from a wealthy family found dead in his flat after a row with neighbours over his loud music. Tony decided to set this string of novels in Warwickshire and Worcestershire after spending many happy years working as a newspaper reporter in Worcester.He first developed a love of writing at the age of nine when he and a friend produced a magazine called the Globe at their junior school in Sevenoaks, Kent. When he reached his teenage years,growing up in Tunbridge Wells, his local vicar staged one of his plays about Naboth’s Vineyard.
Tony was named student journalist of the year in 1971 in a competition run by Time-Life magazine and went onto become a national newspaper journalist, mainly working for the Sunday People in both its newsroom and investigations department. His very first book to be published, the crime novel Smile Of The Stowaway, was released in December 2018. It concerns a Kent couple who harbour a stowaway and then battle to clear his name when he is charged with murder.
Then, in March 2020, the spy novel The Lazarus Charter was released. It involves foreign agents operating in the UK. The book has kindly been endorsed by Marina Litvinenko, widow of themurdered Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, and by Stan and Caroline Sturgess, parents of the innocent mother-of-three poisoned with novichok in Salisbury in 2018.Tony, who has written several other novels which are as yet unpublished, has five grown-up children. He is a Life Member of the National Union of Journalists. He lives in South-East London with his partner Lin.
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My thoughts: We’ve probably all had nuisance neighbours who play their tvs, or in this case, music too loud. However I’ve never gone storming round with a cricket bat in hand to sort it out. The neighbour who does in the opening of this book, definitely regrets it when he finds the nuisance downstairs dead in his flat with an axe in his head.
But he’s not the killer, and the murder case is much more complicated than it might seem, it takes in another murder (or possibly two), blackmail, secrets and a nasty attempt to steal a fortune.
Luckily the team under the leadership of DCI Roscoe, and especially clever DS Sunita Roy, don’t go for the obvious and keep digging, though their boss might not be impressed by the cost of this investigation as it includes a trip to Spain to get some very useful answers.
A clever and knotty case with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader hooked.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 
TONY BASSETT WRITES: Thank you very much for giving up your time to read the book and write such a kind review. Tony
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