Graham Bartlett

Graham Bartlett is a bestselling crime writer and police-procedure guru.

He is author of the Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller Bad for Good (‘a cracking debut’, Mark Billingham) and its follow-ups Force of Hate and City on Fire.

For thirty years, Graham was a police officer, policing the city of Brighton and Hove, and rising to become its police commander. On the way he was a homicide senior investigating officer and led on managing dangerous offenders, sexual offences, domestic violence, child protection and hate crime. He was a qualified strategic firearms and public order commander, leading the policing of many armed operations, large scale protests and sporting events.

He went on to become a police procedural and crime advisor, helping scores of authors and TV writers (including Peter James, Anthony Horowitz, Mark Billingham, Elly Griffiths and Dorothy Koomson) achieve authenticity alongside their drama. He has worked on numerous TV dramas and receives wide praise for his approach to blending procedural accuracy with story and character needs.

Graham also has two bestselling non-fiction books – Death Comes Knocking and Babes in the Wood – to his name.

Courses

Explore courses from Graham Bartlett

With Police Advisor

Crime Writing: Happy Valley Masterclass

Learn how they wrote it on our one-week Happy Valley special.

With Police Advisor

Crime Writing: Murder Squad with Graham Bartlett

Over a year, master police procedure with the ultimate crime bundle.

With Police Advisor

Crime Writing: Character & Dialogue Masterclass

Over a week, give your police characters the true DNA of an officer.

With Police Advisor

Crime Writing: Custody & Interviewing Masterclass

Over a week, nail what actually happens after an arrest.

With Police Advisor

Crime Writing: Covert Policing Masterclass

Over a week, get to grips with surveillance and undercover tactics.

With Police Advisor

Crime Writing: Forensics Masterclass

Over a week, get confident writing about blood, drugs and poison.

Publications

Graham Bartlett's Publications

Bad For Good

The murder of a promising footballer, the son of Brighton’s highest-ranking police officer, means Detective Superintendent Jo Howe has a complicated and sensitive case on her hands. The situation becomes yet more desperate following devastating blackmail threats. Howe can trust no one as she tracks the brutal killer in a city balanced on a knife-edge of vigilante action and a police force riven with corruption.

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Force of Hate

When a firebomb attack at a Brighton travellers’ site kills women and children, Chief Superintendent Jo Howe has strong reason to believe the new, far-right council leader is behind the murders.

Howe digs deeper into the case and uncovers a criminal ring of human trafficking and euthanasia leading to a devastating plot threatening thousands of lives and from which the murderous politician will walk away scot-free.

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City on Fire

After losing her sister to an overdose, Chief Superintendent Jo Howe is desperate to tackle the world of drugs that consumes the shadowy backstreets of Brighton. Operation Eradicate is her response but not everyone sees it as a positive development.

For self-made millionaire Sir Ben Parsons it is a threat to his business – his colossal empire relies on addicts who survive on Respite Pharmaceuticals’ substitute drugs. With connections in the highest levels of government, media and organised crime, Parsons unleashes a brutal counterattack on Howe.

How will she survive being caught in the line of fire?

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Babes in the Wood

Both gripping police procedural and an insight into the motivations of a truly evil man, Babes in the Wood by Graham Bartlett with Peter James is a fascinating account of what became a thirty-two-year fight for justice.

On 9 October 1986, nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway went out to play on their Brighton estate. They would never return home; their bodies discovered the next day concealed in a local park. This devastating crime rocked the country.

With unique access to the officers charged with catching the killer, former senior detective Graham Bartlett and bestselling author Peter James tell the compelling inside story of the investigation as the net tightens around local man Russell Bishop. The trial that follows is one of the most infamous in the history of Brighton policing – a shock result sees Bishop walk free.

Three years later, Graham is working in Brighton CID when a seven-year-old girl is abducted and left to die. She survives . . . and Bishop’s name comes up as a suspect. Is history repeating itself? Can the police put him away this time, and will he ever be made to answer for his past horrendous crimes?

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Death Comes Knocking

Whether it’s the murder of a dodgy nightclub owner and his family in Sussex’s worst non-terrorist mass murder or the race to find the abductor of a young girl, tracking down the antique trade’s most notorious ‘knocker boys’ or nailing an audacious ring of forgers, hunting for a cold-blooded killer who executed a surfer or catching a pair who kidnapped a businessman, leaving him severely beaten, to die on a hillside, the authors skilfully evoke the dangerous inside story of policing, the personal toll it takes and the dedication of those who risk their lives to keep the public safe.

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Graham Bartlett is a bestselling crime writer and police-procedure guru.

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