To celebrate National Share a Story Month in May, we’ve put together a list of some of the best fiction novels set in or around Lincolnshire.
If you have a favourite Lincolnshire-based fiction book you can't put down, but don't see it in our list, let us know in the comments.
‘The Fleethaven Trilogy’ by Margaret Dickinson - A sweeping Lincolnshire family saga spanning two world wars and three generations of women, this popular trilogy includes three novels in one - Plough the Furrow, Sow the Seed and Reap the Harvest. This story of love, war, secrets and tragedy seems destined to repeat itself in heartache before coming full circle and bringing this glorious trilogy to a close.
‘Detective Inspector Paul Amos Lincolnshire Mystery Series’ (six books) by Rodney Hobson - This six-book series follows the efforts of Detective Inspector Paul Amos as he solves brutal murders in rural Lincolnshire. The novels are described as traditional whodunnits set in the early 1990s before the advent of CCTV cameras and mobile phone records, with crimes solved on pure detective work with the reader having all the facts needed to solve the case, just like the detective.
‘Dead Spit - A Lincolnshire Murder mystery’ by Cary Smith - Back in late 2011 a young woman, separated from her partner with a young son upstairs asleep in bed, had been killed in Lincoln by somebody who, it appeared, she had invited into her kitchen at night. Then in March 2012 and to the north of the cathedral city, another young woman with a child is strangled just outside her back door. DCI Craig Darke now has to solve these murders as well as deal with ghosts from his own past.
‘The Mike Malone Mysteries’ (20 book series) by Milly Reynolds’ - ’The Mike Malone Mysteries’, is a series of crime fiction thrillers set in Lincolnshire. The central character for all of the books is Detective Inspector Mike Malone, an affable, yet determined sleuth who has a murky past and wants to make a new start. Now he has his work cut out in what he thought would be a sleepy English shire, as strange events and mysterious occurrences heap up upon one another.
Endless Skies by Jane Cable - After yet another disastrous love affair Rachel has been forced to leave her long-term position for a temporary role as an Archaeology Lecturer at Lincoln University. Rachel has sworn off men and is determined to spend her time away clearing her head and sorting her life out. But when one of her students begins flirting with her, it seems she could be about to make the same mistakes again…
On Laughton Moor by Lisa Hartley - Detective Sergeant Catherine Bishop has an enigmatic new boss, DI Jonathan Knight. How he'll adapt to life in Lincolnshire after years in the Met is anyone's guess. When the body of a well known local thug is discovered, an intriguing message found on his battered corpse raises unwelcome questions. Is DS Bishop herself being accused of the grisly murder, or does the message point to a more sinister secret? As the body count grows higher, Bishop and Knight find themselves in a race against time to discover the identity of a merciless, faceless killer whose motivation is a mystery.
The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth - Winner of the Gordon Burn Prize 2014 and The Bookseller Industry Book of the Year Award 2015, The Wake is a post-apocalyptic novel telling the story of Buccmaster of Holland, a free farmer of Lincolnshire. After losing his sons at the Battle of Hastings and his wife and home to the invading Normans, Buccmaster begins to gather together a band of 'grene men', who take up arms to resist their brutal invaders.
Nothing But Grass by Will Cohu - In the summer of 1875, two travellers walk south across the Lincolnshire Wolds to a village riven with dark secrets. When Norman Tanner kills his workmate on a cold February morning a century later, he thinks he’s got away with murder. But Norman doesn’t know about the workmate’s girlfriend, or the child that will come back to haunt him; and how he is caught up in a story that stretches back to that Victorian summer. For some in the village of Southby and its nearby grand estate, man is master of his fate, and the world is full of meaning; for others there is nothing but grass.
DI Nikki Galena series by Joy Ellis - To date, ward-winning crime author Joy Ellis has written 11 books in this series, all set in the Lincolnshire Fens, and readers are given full insight into the difficulty of policing the Fens as DI Nikki Galena must deal with the remote areas around the marsh.
Death of a Squire by Maureen Ash - When a squire's body is found hanging from a tree, Templar Bascot de Marins is given the task of unearthing the truth before an unprecedented meeting of kings at Lincoln Castle.
1.
Dead Money, book 1 in the Inspector Paul Amos series by Rodney Hobson.
2.
Best Served Cold by Cary Smith
3.
On Laughton Moor by Lisa Hartley.
4.
The Woolly Murders, book one in The Mike Malone Mysteries’ (20 book series) by Milly Reynolds.