William Knox (1928–1999) was a Scottish author, journalist and broadcaster, known for his more than 50 crime novels and for presenting the long-running STV series Crimedesk. In the 1970s, he presented a 15-minute segment asking for public assistance in solving crimes in the central Scotland area. The program ran for more than 10 years. About this time he also made a series of short STV programs called Tales of Crime, in which he described famous Scottish criminal cases.
Knox began writing crime novels in the 1950s, often writing under pseudonyms, frequently for the American market. His pen names included Michael Kirk, Robert MacLeod, and Noah Webster. His series characters included Colin Thane and Phil Moss, Crime Squad officers in Glasgow, Scotland; Talos Cord, a United Nations troubleshooter in New York City, Jonathan Gaunt, external auditor for the Queen in Edinburgh, Scotland; Andrew Laird, international marine insurance claim investigator; and Webb Carrick, chief officer of the Fishery Protection Service in Scotland.
In the first book about Webb Carrick, The Scavengers (Doubleday Crime Club, 1964), Carrick is monitoring the fishing on the west side of Scotland. A Norwegian trawler is reported as working outside its limits and destroying a Scottish boat’s nets, losing them a night’s worth of work. Carrick brings the Norwegian ship in and has the captain dump their catch on the deck. Among the fish is the body of a marine biologist from the local nuclear power station. He went missing more than a week earlier when he went out on a routine search for sea life samples.
While the police and the coroner decide the death was due to overexertion and not enough oxygen, Carrick didn’t understand why an experienced scuba diver should have trouble on a routine trip. His questioning raised a few hackles, which only encouraged him to ask more.
A competent read in an interesting setting. Fans of maritime and environmental crime fiction will want to consider this older series when wondering about their next read.