London, August 2012, and the city is gripped by the Olympics. Londoners are proud to be putting on a great show for the watching world. And positively stunned to find that Brits they had never heard of are winning medals in events they had no idea of. Against this background of euphoria, in the well-to-do and usually quiet suburb of Chislehurst, three murders are committed. First, of a petty thief and cigarette smuggler. Then, of a young police officer investigating the first crime. Last, of a prominent Swiss banker shot on his doorstep. Under pressure from the Mayor, Number 10 and Lord Coe - all of whom worry a long-running investigation will ruin the Olympic party - the Commissioner sends his head of Serious Crimes down to 'help' the young and inexperienced CID team. Connections are soon found to serious and organised crime. Not least to the infamous Brinks Mat gold robbery and the police corruption that ensured it went unsolved. And, with that a further connection between the first victim and a violent pimp and drug dealer based on a grim, high-rise estate a few miles from the killings. But none of the theories quite fit the evidence until, inspired by the intuitive logic of their youngest member - Trainee Detective Constable Martha Cunningham - the team start to make a different set of connections; connections to a sad and very personal story. In this debut, Francis Szeben places us right inside the police investigation. We are with them collecting and collating evidence, trying out theories, chasing down new leads, interviewing witnesses and suspects. Szeben also introduces Martha Cunningham. One the Metropolitan Police's fast-track graduate recruits, she is clever, posh, pretty and sometimes just a little full of herself at times. But she is also committed, playful, independent and insightful. And it is her insight that helps us see clearly what the evidence really points to. The 2nd Cunningham File - The Chislehurst Connection - is now available. The next - The Chislehurst Avengers - will be published late 2015.
About the Author: Francis Szeben has lived in Chislehurst all his life, having been educated at Chislehurst & Sidcup Grammar School and University College London. Now a full-time writer, he has been published in a variety of genres (under different pen names). This series - the Cunningham Files - explores the darker side of life in London, through the eyes of a young Detective Inspector for whom that dark side is as unfamiliar as it is to most of those living in the city. Like all the great detectives in fiction, Martha Cunningham is just a little enigmatic, both an insider and an outsider, both a maverick and a team player. Public school educated - with a Cambridge degree in classics - she is not exactly the archetypal Metropolitan Police DI. And yet, almost because of that, she has been fast tracked by a talent-spotting DCS looking to sprinkle the Force with people he can trust once his ambition to become Commissioner is realised. Untainted by the corruption of the past, Martha and her young team cannot help but get drawn into some of the Met's politicking. Yet that is simply not who they see themselves as. For them, the job is about trying to do a small piece of good for the people the city doesn't really see - looking for the pimps and dealers, while looking out for the hookers, the users and the used. Addressing the disorganised crime of today, not fixating on myths about organised crime in the past. Working their cases, not simply serving their time.