DEATH OF A POLITICIAN

A leading north-east New Labour politician has been murdered. Tim Dawson, a rising star of New Labour politics in Newcastle, and Chair of the Tyne and Wear Council, has been shot twice through the head and heart in what looks like a professional killing. His local rival for power in the Labour Party, the tough, old-style union activist, Ralph Lambis is the main suspect in many peoples’ eyes, but the police are having a hard time proving anything.

Bob Henderson, a former Professor of Philosophy, has retired to his native north-east to commence the descent into old age in the scenic Pennine village of Stanhope. He is drawn into the murder through a chance meeting with Tim and his beautiful wife Stella, and through his new friendship with Detective Superintendant Peter Halgrave, a former school mate remet by accident, and one of the principal officers on the case.

In coming to discover the murderer, Bob learns a fresh respect for his new policeman friend, is exposed to some of the nastier sides of life in the present day north-east, and finds that he is still capable of feelings and desires he thought long left behind. He also discovers that the intellectual and political passions that have shaped his life - passions about which he has lately come to feel jaded, even cynical - can still help him understand the world and the often strange motives that drive the people in it.

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER

When Professor Bob Henderson joins a University of Durham extra-mural class in philosophy taught by Dr. Nicola Raynor, he finds himself unexpectedly embroiled in the politics of the Church of England. For Nicola Raynor is the wife of Arthur Raynor, the radical and controversial Archbishop of Durham, whose liberal stand on the role of homosexuals in the church has made him many enemies.

So when Arthur is murdered - his skull crushed with a blow from one of his own alter candlesticks - there seems at first to be a host of possible suspects. However, the list of likely killers soon dwindles, police investigations stall, and Bob blunders on the truth purely by accident as he attempts to escape an unwanted entanglement with the Archbishop's widow. But the 'truth' that Bob Henderson discovers leaves as many questions begged as answered. It also leaves an atheistic philosopher seeing why human beings might need a God -   whether or not they can have one.

SONS AND SMUGGLERS

Taken for an outing on a re-fitted North Shields trawler by an old friend and retired trawler skipper Tommy Dawson, Professor Bob Henderson gets violently seasick, finds out more than he had had bargained for about the decline of the North Sea fishery and its effect on a north-east coastal town, and discovers that drug smuggling is now a profitable side occupation for desperate fishermen and their crews. But the matter gets suddenly personal when Bob hears of the death of his friend Peter Halgrave's son Jake from a drug overdose. It turns out that Jake Halgrave was a drug pusher as well as an addict, and as Peter struggles with the emotional aftermath of his son's tragedy he sets out to trap Patrick Moody, a major local businessman and drug baron whom he holds responsible for Jake's death.

Completely unexpectedly Bob receives some information from his North Shields fishing contacts that looks as if it might be helpful. Bob and Peter follow the trail and it does lead them to a major quarry - but not the one they had anticipated. As the clues unwind Bob has to witness the murder of Tommy Dawson and the death of his wife Mary, the ruin of a senior police officer, and the capture of some minor criminals. But the mastermind behind the whole enterprise remains completely untouched - or so it seems.