Kaos

No one in the small English town of Fordhamton liked Alan Price. When he was found dead in a hotel bedroom Detective Chief Inspector Steve Winwood had plenty of suspects. On the other hand, he found that no one wanted Alan Price dead, he had more value to the town being alive. Then the post-mortem revealed that he had an unknown 'truth drug' in his system of a kind usually deployed by the secret services. He had met a woman for lunch who could have spiked his drink, but no one saw her enter his room or leave the hotel. He is assigned a new Sergeant, Miles Davis who prefers decaffeinated tea to Winwood's favourite Redbourne best bitter and a lifestyle quite alien to his superior officer. Winwood soon discovers that Alan Price's business has now collapsed on his death, but he had just secured a large export order which the company could not fulfil. Winwood finds a soulmate in the Banks's Assistant Manager Dave Edmunds, but it is Davis who understands the way International Trade works. Winwood has no luck in tracing the mystery woman at the hotel who he has codenamed Kaos. He suspects that she is working for MI5. Then an American who was staying at the same hotel as Price is found dead in his car outside Price's business premises with a can full of petrol. It appears that he was intending to set fire to the factory. Winwood continues to question anyone who had even the slightest contact with Alan Price. He needs to know what it is about the town and a small one-man business that attracts the attention of undercover agents and why The Famous Five his office manager, his investment advisor and wife, his ex-wife and her new boyfriend the Bank Manager) are planning a future with Price's estate. John Barber was born in London at the height of the UK Post War baby boom. The Education Act of 1944 saw great changes in the way the nation was taught; the main one being that all children stayed at school until the age of 15 (later increased to 16). For the first time working class children were able to reach higher levels of academic study and the opportunity to gain further educational qualifications at University.This explosion in education brought forth a new aspirational middle class; others remained true to their working class roots. The author belongs somewhere between the two. Many of the author's main characters have their genesis in this educational revolution. Their dialogue though idiosyncratic can normally be understood but like all working class speech it is liberally sprinkled with strange boyhood phrases and a passing nod to cockney rhyming slang.John Barber's novels are set in fictional English towns where sexual intrigue and political in-fighting is rife beneath a pleasant, small town veneer of respectability.They fall within the cozy, traditional British detective sections of mystery fiction.He has been writing professionally since 1996 when he began to contribute articles to magazines on social and local history. His first published book in 2002 was a non-fiction work entitled The Camden Town Murder which investigated a famous murder mystery of 1907 and names the killer. This is still available in softback and as an ebook, although not available from SmashwordsJohn Barber had careers in Advertising, International Banking and the Wine Industry before becoming Town Centre Manager in his home town of Hertford. He is now retired and lives with his wife and two cats on an island in the middle of Hertford and spends his time between local community projects and writing further novels.