Welcome to the official website of Joan Lock

A former nurse and policewoman, Joan Lock is the author of eleven non-fiction police/crime books, including two on Scotland Yard’s first detectives and the history of the British women police – a subject on which she is an authority. Joan has also written radio plays and documentries.

Her crime fiction includes short stories and eight novels, one modern and seven Victorian, featuring the charismatic Detective Inspector Ernest Best.

For ten years Joan contributed Locklines, a regular page on police matters, to Red Herrings, the journal of the Crime Writers Association for which she received a Red Herring (1999) for services to the Association and the Leo Harris Award (2004) for the best contribution to the journal. She is the past Chair of the CWA Non-Fiction Gold Dagger Award panel.

Scotland Yard's First Cases

Scotland Yard's First Case cover Robert Hale: 30 November 2011

When Scotland Yard's first detective branch was set up in 1842 crime was very different from today. The favoured murder weapon was the cut-throat razor; carrying a pocket watch was dangerous; the most significant clue at a murder scene might be the whereabouts of a candle or a hat; large households (family, servants and lodgers) complicated many a case and servants sometimes murdered their masters.

Detectives had few aids and suffered many disadvantages. The bloody handprints found at two early murder scenes were of no help, there being no way of telling whether blood (or hair) was human or animal. Fingerprinting was fifty years away, DNA profiling another hundred and photography was too new to help with identification.

They had no transport and when travelling by omnibus or cab often had difficulty in recouping the fares. All reports had to be handwritten and the only means of keeping contact with colleagues and sending important information was by letter post, on horseback or by foot. In spite of these handicaps and severe press criticism, the detectives achieved some significant successes. Joan Lock includes classic cases such as the First Railway Murder, as well as many fascinating new ones, weaving in developments such the electric telegraph against a background of authentic Victorian police procedure. Charles Dickens said that Scotland Yard detectives gave the impression of leading lives of strong mental excitement. Readers of this book will understand why...’