Frank Elder

Series · 4 books · 2005-2018

By John Harvey

Books in series

Flesh & Blood

2006

Betrayed by his wife and recently retired from the police, Detective Inspector Elder is drawn out of his reclusive life to solve an old murder case that will not let him rest. By the author of In a True Light.

Ash & Bone

2005

Detective Sergeant Maddy Birch will never see thirty again. Nor forty. A lifetime on the force and all she has to show for it is a couple of hundred pounds in the bank and a mortgaged flat in Highgate Borders. When the take down of a violent criminal goes badly wrong leaving both the target and a young constable dead, something doesn’t feel right to Maddy. And her uneasiness is only compounded when she starts to believe someone is following her home. In Cornwall retired Detective Inspector Elder’s solitary life is disturbed by a phone call from his estranged wife Joanne. Seventeen-year-old Katherine is running wild. Elder’s fears for his daughter are underscored by remorse and guilt for it was his involvement that led directly to the abduction and rape that has so unbalanced Katherine’s life. Maddy and Elder have a connection. A brief, clumsy encounter sixteen years earlier. Just a quick grope and a cuddle, leading to nothing, but leaving a trace of lingering regret. In Ash & Bone the unsettled, unhappy Elder is once again persuaded out of retirement. A cold, cold case has a devastating present day impact with sinister implications for the crime squad itself. Elder’s investigation takes place against the backdrop of his increasing concern for his daughter and he must battle his own demons before he can uncover the truth.

Darkness & Light

2006

Former cop Frank Elder is once more drawn out of retirement by a phone call from his ex-wife, this time asking him to look into the disappearance of her friend Jennie's older, widowed sister Claire in Nottingham. Elder reluctantly agrees to return to the city where his family disintegrated. Elder soon uncovers sexual secrets of Claire's that take Jennie by surprise. But when Claire is found dead at home—unmarked and carefully dressed—it is Elder who is surprised by the similarities to an old case. To solve this riddle, Elder will have to repartner with another person from his past, Detective Inspector Maureen Prior, and delve into several suspects' own traumatic histories. In a case in which neither memories, confessions, nor instincts can be trusted, Elder struggles with the weight of the past and Harvey delivers another psychologically trenchant page-turner.

Body & Soul

2018

Frank Elder's last case could be the one that breaks him for good. The heavy manacles around the girl’s wrists, perhaps not surprisingly, looked very much like the ones that had been found on the studio floor. For a moment, she had a vision of the chain to which they were attached being swung through the air, taking on force and speed before striking home. Then swung again. When his estranged daughter Katherine appears on his doorstep, ex-Detective Frank Elder knows that something is wrong. Katherine has long been troubled, and Elder has always felt powerless to help her. But now Katherine has begun to self-destruct; the breakdown of her affair with a controversial artist, known for his pornographic paintings, has sent her into a tailspin. But when the artist is found murdered in his studio, suspicion falls on Katherine. The vultures are circling. And as Elder struggles to protect his daughter and prove her innocence, the terrors of the past threaten them both once more...

Author

John Harvey

Author · 28 books

aka Jon Barton, William S. Brady (with Angus Wells), L.J. Coburn (with Laurence James), J.B. Dancer (with Angus Wells), John B. Harvey, William M. James (with Terry Harknett and Laurence James), Terry Lennox, John J. McLaglen (with Laurence James), James Mann, Thom Ryder, J.D. Sandon (with Angus Wells), Jon Hart John Harvey (born 21 December 1938 in London) is a British author of crime fiction most famous for his series of jazz-influenced Charlie Resnick novels, based in the City of Nottingham. Harvey has also published over 90 books under various names, and has worked on scripts for TV and radio. He also ran Slow Dancer Press from 1977 to 1999 publishing poetry. The first Resnick novel, Lonely Hearts, was published in 1989, and was named by The Times as one of the 100 Greatest Crime Novels of the Century. Harvey brought the series to an end in 1998 with Last Rites, though Resnick has since made peripheral appearances in Harvey's new Frank Elder series. The protagonist Elder is a retired detective who now lives, as Harvey briefly did, in Cornwall. The first novel in this series, Flesh and Blood, won Harvey the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger in 2004, an accolade many crime fiction critics thought long overdue. In 2007 he was awarded the Diamond Dagger for a Lifetime's Contribution to the genre. On 14th July 2009 he received an honorary degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Nottingham in recognition of his literary eminence and his associations with both the University and Nottingham (particularly in the Charlie Resnick novels). He is also a big Notts County fan.