Gordon Bickerstaff was born and raised in Glasgow, spending his student years in Edinburgh. On summer vacations, he learned plumbing, garden maintenance, and cut the grass in the Meadows.

*If he ran the lawnmower over your toes, he says … “sorry.” 

He learned some biochemistry and taught it for a while before retiring to write fiction. He lives with his wife in Scotland, where in his own words  … “corrupt academics, mystery, murder and intrigue exists mostly in my mind.” 

Gordon Bickerstaff writes the Gavin Shawlens series of thrillers: Deadly Secrets, Everything To Lose, The Black Fox, Toxic Minds and Tabula Rasa. They feature special investigators Zoe and Gavin. More will come in due course.

In addition to the above, Gordon is a valued member and contributor to the IASD writing group and an avid supporter of other authors. 

Gordon’s social media:

TWITTER:  @ADpase – BLOG: https://gordonbickerstaff.blogspot.com/

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Deadly Secrets

Hints of Michael Crichton with lots of blood and gore … what more could you ask?

Deadly Secrets is the first in an ongoing book series numbering five to date. It’s a fast-paced thriller that blends lots of blood and gory violence with an intriguing story. It kicks off with the central character, Gavin Shawlens, being called to the suspicious death of a dog being housed at some kennels. The case is a mystery to him, and the story quickly takes a different direction before he makes the connection

I won’t give any of the plot away but will say it has all the elements that, say, a Michael Crichton fan would expect in a book: a secret government investigatory organisation, the accidental discovery of a ‘flawed’ process for a revolutionary new food ingredient, various international parties willing to stop at nothing to get their hands on, and political and corporate intrigue. Alongside the main story, there’s also some gruesome nasty side-lines of a corporate mogul’s business that could almost warrant a whole new book in their own right. There’s a fair sprinkling of science and biochemistry littered throughout to give the main story credibility, but not so much as to leave the average reader overwhelmed or baffled by it all, with lots of easy to read analogies to clarify things.

It was good to have a central character/hero type character that wasn’t the stereotypical action man, but one with all the more usual frailties and fears that most of us might feel in the same situation. There were lots of unexpected twists and turns in the characters’ personal lives that fitted the story perfectly but all totally believable.  

The ending is clearly designed to intrigue the reader as to future stories, leaving hints of unfinished business which I’ll be reading up on in the near future. Great book!

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See here for Gordon Bickerstaff’s Amazon author page and other books …