Faith Martin Books

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Faith Martin is a British author that writes detective novels. ‘Faith Martin’ is a pen name. The author’s real name is Jacqui Walton. Martin comes from oxford. Following her stint at a secretarial college, she joined Sommerville College, working for the institution as a secretary.

She stayed with them for six years. At the time, she was responsible for her parents. A vehicular accident had left them in a vulnerable position. She gave them the support they needed. Once the compensation for their injuries arrived, Martin decided to pursue her writing ambitions. She had to take leave from her job for a year. The sacrifice paid off.

Because the author writes mystery novels, some people might be surprised to learn that her first published story (Stolen Fire) was a romance novel. It wasn’t the only one. Martin penned 13 romance novels before she finally turned her attention to the detective genre.

She made the switch because the interest in romance had temporarily dissipated. Martin’s decision to write crime fiction made sense. She was a massive fan of the genre. She grew up reading the works of writers like Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler.

She couldn’t get enough of the crime fiction of the 1960s. She loved everything associated with the Golden Age of the crime genre, especially the locked-room mysteries, the six suspects that would emerge during an investigation, the incredible sleuths, etc.

Once she decided to write mysteries and police procedurals, she made it her mission to produce the same stories that had entertained her as a child, the kind that felt like roller-coasters because of their pace and the numerous twists and turns. But at the time, the market was dominated by the ‘Inspector Morse’ novels.

Faith Martin did not want to compete with the franchise. But she was still determined to play in the same field. Her only recourse was to introduce a series that was as far removed from Inspector Morse as she could possibly get. So Martin decided to make her protagonist a woman.

Rather than solving cases in the city of Oxford like Inspector Morse, Martin sent her sleuth, DI Hillary Greene, to fight crime in smaller towns and villages. At the time, the author had noticed that many popular sleuths had incredibly dysfunctional lives.

She couldn’t understand how they could solve mysteries when their home lives were in such dire straits. As such, rather than saddling her heroine with a bad marriage, Martin chose to introduce the detective to her readers at a time when she was navigating a divorce from a crooked cop.

Once she concluded that a narrowboat on the Oxford Canal was the perfect home for Hillary Greene, Martin was ready to send the detective out into the world to solve the many mysteries she was concocting.

The first few Hillary Greene books did well enough. But it wasn’t until ‘A Narrow Escape’ was republished in 2008 that interest in the series exploded.

Best Faith Martin Books

The author loves nature, which is why the descriptions of wildlife in her novels are so vivid. Martin’s best books include:

Murder On The Oxford Canal: DI Hillary Greene was in a difficult spot. Her career was hanging on a knife’s edge. The fact that she had started the process of divorcing DI Ronnie Greene was the least of her worries. Ronnie’s actions had tarnished her name.

It would take everything that Hillary had to repel the investigation for corruption that had come her way. Meanwhile, a body was discovered in the Oxford canal. The evidence suggested that the victim had taken a tumble from a boat.

But Hillary was not satisfied by the explanation. She was convinced that so much more was going on and her investigation proved as much.

Murder At The University: A French student was dead. The pretty woman was lodging at an exclusive college in Oxford. Her remains were found in her room. But Hillary disagreed with those who thought that her death was the result of a drug overdose.

Something was not right and it did not take the detective long to sniff it out. Once she unearthed the shocking cause of the woman’s death, the case took on a new level of importance.

When Does The Next Faith Martin book come out?

Faith Martin doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is Murder on the Train and was released on May, 29th 2024. It is the newest book in the DI Hillary Greene Series.

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