HAVING helped out another local author with his book, former police detective Stephen Eastwood thought it would be a crime if he didn’t have a go himself.

And what a good decision that was with the release of his debut novel, Devotion to Murder.

Stephen, who lives in Clacton, joined the police in 1974.

Over the years he worked across a number of areas from city fraud, intelligence work with Special Branch and Scotland Yard Criminal intelligence, CID, as well as in Child Support Fraud.

As the name suggests, Stephen’s book tells the story of a detective inspector investigating a mysterious murder but when it came to the setting of his crime fiction, Stephen went back in time.

“That’s down to the technology,” he jokes.

“The problem with writing police fiction in modern times is you have to deal with all the massive changes that have occurred.

“For example finger printing with paper didn’t come in until 1974 “ I’ve been out since 2004 and even in that time lots of different procedures have been introduced, so rather than doing bags of research, it was just a lot easier to set it in the past.”

To be precise, May 1949.

That’s when sinister secrets from World War Two are revealed when a nun is found beaten to death, in the grounds of a lordship’s estate.

Assigned his first murder case, Detective Inspector Alby Cooper must find out who killed Sister Margaret.

Sent to support Lord Roding, whose faith has been shattered by the death of his wife and son, Inspector Cooper’s team of investigators, which includes the police superintendent’s niece, are led back to the Second World War where hidden lives are brought out into the open.

“This is actually my second book,” he reveals.

“I wrote a semi-autobiographical one called An Oik’s Progresses and after helping out another local writer with their book, I thought about writing a crime book myself.

“I soon discovered I got a real kick out of writing, bringing ideas at the back of my head and turning them into a story was real buzz.

“Unlike some other writers I know, who make time every day to write, I tend to do it when I’m in the right frame of mind, which of course means the process takes a bit longer.

“I have joined a couple of writing groups and that has helped a lot.

“They’re very supportive and I’ve picked up a lot of the principles of writing a novel.”

And of course Stephen’s wealth of knowledge when it comes to policing.

“They say write about what you know,” Stephen said.

“And while the technology has changed the basics of policing have not, especially investigating a case.

“I also decided to set the book in and around the Colchester area, where I was a police officer for a while.

“But while Alby Cooper was a real person, I just appropriated the name, the character if nothing like him.”

With more Alby Cooper stories in the pipeline, Devotion to Murder by Steve Eastwood is out now, available in all good bookshops and on-line.