Peter Norman Walker (1936-2017) was a lifelong resident of North Yorkshire. He served as a police officer in the North Riding force for 30 years, upon which he based his crime fiction writing. In addition to publishing under his name, he also released books under the pseudonyms Andrew Arncliffe, Christopher Coram, Tom Ferris, and Nicholas Rhea. A veritable writing machine, Walker produced more than 130 books.
He wrote a number of stand-alones and multiple series, the best known is the Constable series of about 40 books, which was adapted for television. The TV series called Heartbeat ran for 18 seasons and over 350 episodes, with 18 million viewers per episode at its peak popularity.
His first series of 11 books features Detective Sergeant James Aloysius Carnaby-King. Carnaby and the Hijackers (Robert Hale, 1967) is Carnaby’s first appearance and Walker’s debut novel. The story follows DS Carnaby of the North Yorkshire CID as he goes undercover to help prevent another Great Train Robbery. Carnaby cautiously established himself as a corrupt cop, not averse to accepting the odd bribe for inside information or to make a criminal charge disappear. He gradually worked his way into a position of trust within a gang of professional thieves and was well established to play a dangerous game of feeding false information to the crooks while conveying their plans to Scotland Yard.
Scotland Yard determined that a large gold shipment leaving London and going to Glasgow was the next major target of the gang. The executives at the Yard also learned that a number of small heists were taking place to finance the larger one. The critical theft was expected to be the hijacking of a truck carrying some £50,000 worth of whiskey, which is the focus of the plot.
Carnaby’s credibility is questioned by both sides, as might be expected by someone who routinely double-crosses his colleagues. The role of undercover is wearing psychologically, especially to someone who performs it for years, as Carnaby did.
Well-written with an engaging plot, although the momentum sagged a bit here and there. Some of the plot twists were predictable, but most of them weren’t, especially the final one. Walker was a capable writer of traditional police procedurals from the beginning and his considerable bibliography is worth further investigation.