Welcome to the official website of Joan Lock

More recently she has turned to crime fiction, and to date has written one modern crime novel and a Victorian series 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 was the Chair of the CWA Non-Fiction Gold Dagger Award panel.

Dead Centre - due out 30 May

Hale, 2008, the seventh Inspector Best mystery

It is 1887, the year of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, and London is in turmoil, particularly at the dead  centre, Trafalgar Square. Here, the angry unemployed gather daily to protest and nightly to sleep.  The police are worn out by endless duty and bitter about the accusations of brutality from the protesters and blame from others for not doing more to prevent the disorder.

Adding fuel to the fire, a prominent member of one of the new socialist organisations leading the protests is found dead at the foot of Nelson’s column and  Detective Inspector Earnest Best catches a fleeting glimpse of Stark a man he knows was guilty of a dreadful crime in Whitechapel.  Tension builds. Something terrible is about to happen.