POLICE BOOKS - Richard Allen

Visit the Avon and Somerset Constabulary (England) website.

Richard Allen, the son of senior officer in the Bristol Fire Brigade, joined the Bristol Constabulary in 1966 as a constable and served with the Vice Squad, Drug Squad and Special Branch. He was promoted sergeant in 1971, inspector in 1974, chief inspector in 1981 and superintendent in 1989.

During 1978, Richard had published Effective Supervision in the Police Service (McGraw-Hill), which was listed as recommended reading by the US Department of Justice. This was followed in 1986 with the publication of Leading from the Middle (Barry Rose) and recommended reading for officers attending the Junior and Intermediate Command Courses at the Police Staff College, England.

Between 1988 and 1993, Richard was a visiting speaker to the Overseas Command Courses at the Police Staff College and between 1989 and 1994 the principal police lecturer at the Royal Military College of Science Disaster Preparedness Centre.

Richard retired from the uniformed service of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary in 1996 and joined the Gloucestershire force as the civilian Head of Training and Development, until his eventual retirement in December 2002.

Richard has an MSc from the University of Glamorgan Business School, is a Fellow of the Charted Institute of Personal & Development and a Member of the Chartered Management Institute.

Richard now acts as a consultant in leadership development for an Anglo-Australian consultancy (www.viprojects.com) and is an associate tutor, Chester University (www.chester.ac/uk).

He is the unpaid co-ordinator of volunteers for the Bristol City Council’s Civil Contingencies Team and an unpaid assistant instructor with the Avon Centre for Riding for the Disabled.

His first novel, Dirty Business, was published in November 2005. His second, Die Back, is available now. Richard is currently writing his third novel entitled Darker than Death.

Dirty Business, first published in 2005 by Ryan Press (UK) and now available from www.lulu.com in the larger 9” x 6” format, finds Chief Inspector Mark Faraday taking command of the Bristol Central District just as MI6 move in to conduct a covert and unauthorised surveillance operation on his district. To make matters worse, Faraday is required to share his office with the beautiful Helen Cave of MI5. But when one of Faraday’s best young officers is murdered an intricately woven plot is uncovered involving secret bank accounts and a dissident Irish terrorist group. From County Wicklow and the rarefied atmosphere of an exclusive London club to Salisbury Plain and the streets of Bristol, and against a background of brutal murder and international intrigue, a deadly clock is ticking as Mark Faraday and Helen Cave race against time to prevent the nuclear devastation that threatens the West Country.

In Die Back, “when Superintendent Mark Faraday investigates the disappearance of a local lorry driver, a top secret UK and US intelligence operation, designed to destroy the poppy fields of Afghanistan, is unwittingly undermined. As Faraday is drawn deeper into the secret world of intelligence, he confronts his own senior officers and foreign law enforcement agencies, cynical self interest and murder. From the splendor of the House of Lords and the beauty of the Venetian palazzos to the deserts of Western Australia, Superintendent Faraday pursues his investigation, haunted by the death of one friend and mesmerized by the beauty of another.”