The Late Bill Smith

by Andrew Garve

Sue Hammond worked for a travel agency, as a Group Travel courier. She was packing for her sixth trip in as many months - this time to the Aegean - when there was a sudden loud noise on the balcony outside her bedroom. The French doors were pushed open and a man appeared, with blood streaming down his face. The man was Bill Smith, salesman for the London Metal Exchange, which should have been a reasonably safe, humdrum job, though he did travel all over the world because of it. But Bill's life suddenly didn't seem safe - or at all humdrum. And Sue, to her amazement, found that her own job became not only much more exciting but considerably more dangerous, because of the new man who had so surprisingly entered her life. Andrew Garve was one of Paul Winterton's pseudonyms. He worked as a journalist and travelled widely, and was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association.

156 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

AKA: Paul Somers, Roger Bax

Andrew Garve was the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908-2001). He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942 to 1945, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.

After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He was noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – including Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.

Andrew Garve was a founding member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.

Reviews

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 2 out of 5]

disappointing

[Saya · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nearly romantic Garve... Starts at Chelsea/London...