Tony Bassett’s latest novel, “SEAT 97,” is a gripping thriller set in London. It concerns a man shot dead at a concert hall after he takes a seat next to journalist Nick Colton and his wife Greta.
Colton knows the 45-year-old soul music fan who was murdered had swapped tickets with another concertgoer moments earlier.
So was the victim the intended target or did the assassin shoot the wrong man?
The novel introduces readers to the competitive world of British journalism, delves into London gang crime and sees Colton clashing with detectives as he strives to find out why the dead man was killed.
Tony is a former Fleet Street journalist. SEAT 97 is his fifth novel to be published by The Book Folks, an independent London publisher specialising in crime fiction.
The previous four books were all part of Tony’s Midlands series which feature Detective Chief Inspector Gavin Roscoe, an experienced detective and family man, and his sergeant, law graduate and resourceful problem-solver Sunita Roy.
The most recent book in this series, Out For Revenge (Book 4), was published in October 2022. It concerns notorious gangland boss Tadeusz Filipowski - a man with numerous enemies who plans to expand his Midlands drug empire on his release from jail.
Among his detractors is a corrupt detective who has in the past helped the drug baron keep one step ahead of the law.
When Filipowski is found dead, it presents DS Sunita Roy from Heart of England Police with a tough case to crack. For so many had a grudge against the dead man that she is overwhelmed by suspects.
She could normally count on the full support of her boss, DCI Gavin Roscoe, in her investigation into the criminal life of Filipowski.
But he has been tasked with an equally crucial investigation – gathering enough evidence against the corrupt detective to bring him to justice.
Eventually, it becomes clear the two inquiries are inextricably linked.
But, as the two detectives pursue events, they realise someone has been plotting a brutal revenge. A revenge that threatens to put the lives of one of the detectives in great peril.
The previous novel, Murder Of A Doctor (Book 3), was released in May 2022. It was the third mystery tale in the series.
This book concerns a well-respected family doctor who sets off on a morning run and is later discovered dead in woods near his home in Warwickshire. Ambitious young detective DS Roy is determined to solve the case.. But the only clues are an expensive necklace and a bus ticket, and there are many suspects..
Murder On Oxford Lane (Book 1) and The Crossbow Stalker (Book 2) were published in the spring of 2022.
Murder On Oxford Lane is about the disappearance of a property tycoon from a sleepy Warwickshire village.
Middle-aged DCI Roscoe and his sergeant, DS Roy, are confronted by suspicious deaths as they struggle to uncover what has happened to the businessman.
The Crossbow Stalker concerns a man being targeted in a hate campaign who begs police for help. Then he is shot dead with a crossbow bolt and a handkerchief embroidered with the letter C found stuffed in his mouth. The detectives face an uphill battle to catch the killer.
Tony is currently working on a fifth book in the Midlands series which concerns a man from a wealthy family found dead in his flat after a row with neighbours over his loud music.
Tony decided to set this string of novels in Warwickshire and Worcestershire after spending many happy years working as a newspaper reporter in Worcester.
He first developed a love of writing at the age of nine when he and a friend produced a magazine called the Globe at their junior school in Sevenoaks, Kent. When he reached his teenage years, growing up in Tunbridge Wells, his local vicar staged one of his plays, about Naboth's Vineyard.
At Hull University, Tony was named student journalist of the year in 1971 in a competition run by Time-Life magazine and went onto become a national newspaper journalist, mainly working for the Sunday People in both its newsroom and investigations department.
His very first book to be published, the crime novel Smile Of The Stowaway, was released in December 2018. It concerns a Kent couple who harbour a stowaway and then battle to clear his name when he is charged with murder.
Then, in March 2020, the spy novel The Lazarus Charter, was released. It involves foreign agents operating in the UK. The book has kindly been endorsed by Marina Litvinenko, widow of the murdered Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, and by Stan and Caroline Sturgess, parents of the innocent mother-of-three poisoned with novichok in Salisbury in 2018.
Tony, who has written several other novels which are as yet unpublished, has five grown-up children. He is a Life Member of the National Union of Journalists. He lives in South-East London with his partner Lin.
