Meet, for the first time, David Good, Private Investigator. Plying his trade in 1980s South London, the PI with pliable morals, a taste for blondes and a full-on sense of humour, turns out to be a big softie as he takes up the challenge of sorting out yet another domestic mess. Having discovered that one Alice Jones, a young woman with a well-developed taste for strawberries, has a varied and not entirely honest life, he quickly finds himself wrestling with emotions he'd prefer would go away. As it is, they leave him confused and struggling to work out what he should do with the woman. Join Good on this little jaunt through South London and ask yourself what you would do next.

She's blonde. She’s clever. She’s in his office. London based PI David Good doesn’t stand a chance.

South London. The 1980s. David Good, a morally confused and womanising private investigator, is hired by a ridiculously beautiful blonde to help her fend off the attentions of a serial blackmailer. But he's barely got to grips with the woman's keen sense of self-interest when he stumbles on to something far more unsavoury.

Never one to run a mile when a woman needs help, Good finds himself up to his neck in trouble, upsetting some unpleasant people with short fuses and their own self-interest to protect. This time his trade mark sense of humour might not be enough to see him safely out the other side, but the clock's ticking, so for once he ignores the obvious risk to his own carelessly maintained health and starts to unmask an illicit trade that's been causing a great deal of suffering.

Join David Good as he seeks to simultaneously unravel both the crime and the woman.

"Westerham’s writing is tight, smooth to read, carries great descriptions and all with a dry wit and wry humor." Amazon USA review of 'Good Girl Gone Bad'.

This book is part of the David Good, private investigator series, which can be read in any order you like.

Meeting the perfect woman can have its downsides, as London based PI David Good is about to find out.

Good girls can seem ten-a-penny at times and some people would have you believe they're sweet little things that wouldn't harm a hair on a squirrel's back. And in 1980s south London, private investigator David Good thinks he's been lucky enough to find his very own example of well-behaved perfection.

But he really ought to have known better and it's not long before he finds things are not all he was hoping for. In fact, he's not got much further than a less than intimate lunch for two, when things start to go seriously pear-shaped, and almost terminal.

Join a love-filled Good as he wanders blindly in to someone else's nightmare and find out just what it is that ends up leaving such a sour taste in his cynical little mouth.

“Just love the way Ben Westerham writes, love his style, the humour and his normalness, is that a word? Don't care. Great book. Great story and lots of humour worth reading again.” Amazon UK review.

This book is part of the David Good, private investigator series, which can be read in any order you like.

She’s lost in the land of the living. He’s desperate to keep her from the land of the dead.

An unscheduled visit to church sees London based PI David Good sign up for what appears to be a straightforward missing person case. But it's not long before he lands up in hospital and finds his emotions being taken on a roller-coaster ride he wasn’t expecting, as he races to save a desperate woman from herself.

If that wasn’t enough, an ex-convict with revenge on his mind comes knocking at his door, an elderly woman has him chasing her old man all over town and a nubile young thing with insatiable appetites keeps making unreasonable demands on his over-worked body.

Buy the book now to find out if the irresistible private investigator with questionable morals, a taste for blondes and a big sense of humour has what it takes to solve his latest case in 1980s London.

"Westerham’s writing is tight, smooth to read, carries great descriptions and all with a dry wit and wry humor." Amazon USA review of 'Good Girl Gone Bad'.

This book is part of the David Good, private investigator series, which can be read in any order you like.

When you’re dressed for living and full of beans, a run-in with death might not be all that is seems.

London based PI, David Good, only went out to get his hair cut and to pick up a few bits and bobs at the local shops but, somehow or other, he’s finished up with a murder case on his hands. A man he’d spoken to only briefly that very morning has turned up dead, seemingly the victim of a hit-and-run incident. But it doesn’t take Good long to find out there is a lot more to things than first appeared.

No one is going to pay him for this case and he might not even get so much as a thank you, but he can’t help himself, things need sorting. Walking away would offend his sensibilities.

Will he regret his decision? Will he be able to cover the ground fast enough to apprehend his chief suspect?

Join south London’s hottest new private investigator to find out for yourself before someone else spills the beans.

"Westerham’s writing is tight, smooth to read, carries great descriptions and all with a dry wit and wry humor." Amazon USA review of 'Good Girl Gone Bad'.

This book is part of the David Good, private investigator series, which can be read in any order you like.

She’s Queen of the dancefloor and would-be Queen of the con and she’s about to give London based PI David Good a right old run-around.


It seems to private investigator, David Good, that he might well have come face-to-face with the hottest claimant yet for the title of Queen of the Con in 1980s London. He might be no mug himself, but she’s a smooth operator with a ruthless streak as wide as the English Channel and most of her previous victims don’t seem to be in a hurry to cross her path a second time by helping out Good.

There might be one way for him to turn the tables and rescue his new client, but the bad news is that it requires Good to take both his left feet for a twirl on the dancefloor. That could be embarrassing.

But Good soon finds more pressing concerns getting in the way of his latest case when a local gang boss makes him an offer he very definitely can’t refuse. Good is willing, the trouble is the money-laden gambler he is supposed to find is determined to remain very much missing.

Messing up one case would be bad enough. Messing up both could prove terminal. Join Good as he does the quick step across half of London and tries not to fall flat on his face.


"Westerham’s writing is tight, smooth to read, carries great descriptions and all with a dry wit and wry humor." Amazon USA review of 'Good Girl Gone Bad'.


This book is part of the David Good, private investigator series, which can be read in any order you like.

Hide and seek may be child’s play, but murder most certainly is not.

Summer 1959. When murder comes to the garden party of the Reverend George Sixpence, the curmudgeonly Inspector Leslie Dykeman and the irascible Sergeant Stanley Shapes are despatched from Banbury police station to apprehend the killer.

Arriving at the splendid Victorian vicarage, Dykeman and Shapes find a group of suspects riddled with envy, bitterness and contempt for one another. As the two policemen struggle to uncover meaningful clues and Dykeman finds himself distracted by the arrival of pathologist Dr Sheila Delph, the killer stalks their next victim. This is one game the two policemen cannot afford to lose, but it seems as if the killer is out-playing them at every turn and it begins to look like there will be only one winner.

Money can buy you many things but immortality isn’t one of them.

Business titan, Henry Graball, has it all. Money, power, status. None dare challenge him, whatever the justification. At least, that is how he sees the world and why not?

When his dead body is found at the venue of the extravagant party he has thrown to celebrate his success, it is clear there is someone out there who sees things very differently indeed.

When so many people have good reason to wish ill of the bullying, immoral and self-obsessed businessman, Inspector Leslie Dykeman and Sergeant Stanley Shapes find themselves engaged on a case many would rather they never solve. Could this turn out to be one case where the killer gets clean away or will the two policemen rise to the challenge, despite the obstacles placed in their way?

An old-fashioned festival where someone’s idea of fun proves nothing short of deadly.

As their cosy little weekend of fun and frivolity is blown out of the water by a violent murder, Inspector Leslie Dykeman and Sergeant Stanley Shapes find themselves faced with a plethora of possibilities and few obvious suspects amongst a group of friends staying at the upmarket Marlborough Hotel. Except, that is, they’re about to discover that even the best of friends have secrets they prefer to keep hidden and with good reason.

Unhappily for Dykeman, he is also about to find himself facing competition for the attentions of the woman he has belatedly come to realise means more to him than just mere friendship. But how is he to fight his corner when there’s a murder to be solved?

Is Dykeman is about to lose his grip on both his latest case and the woman he can’t imagine ever doing without.

Sun, sea, sand. The perfect setting for a little romance, just so long as you can ignore the blackmail, the kidnapping and the corpses.

Looking forward to a few days in the old seaside town of Brighton, private investigator David Good is expecting to do nothing more than hand-hold a young woman needing to keep a low profile. When the manageress of the hotel they are staying at takes a shine to him it looks like all is rosy in his garden.

Honestly, though, what did he expect? As things start to go badly wrong, Good is by turns bemused, concerned, then seriously worried and as the violence escalates, he starts to wonder if he’s out of his depth. One thing is for sure, if he messes up then it could be curtains for his client.

Join Good in this mystery set in the old fashioned seaside town of Brighton, where the action is mixed with a little humour and romance.

Money, fast cars and beautiful women. It seems like the perfect case for private investigator David Good. And that’s just what it is, except now people have started going missing and he’s beginning to feel like he’s in the middle of a magic show where he’s the only one who doesn’t know how the trick’s done. If he doesn’t work out soon how this vanishing act is carried off, he might end up losing more than just his sense of humour.

London based private investigator David Good has been asked by a new client to track down his wife, who has walked out on him with fifty thousand pounds in her handbag and not been seen since. Easy enough, thinks Good, but he’s about to find himself part of a magic show, where more than his sense of humour may be about to disappear.

When a member of Her Majesty’s tax inspectorate with ambitions of her own makes him an unwelcome offer he can’t refuse, things become a whole lot more complicated. And it doesn’t help that he soon finds himself being distracted by the amorous advances of the kind of woman he’d normally think of as being out of his league.

Events then take a sinister turn that leaves Good wondering if he hasn’t been looking in entirely the wrong place and that he might need his very own wand if he’s going to lift the vanishing spell that’s been cast over this case.

Join David Good in his latest romp across 1980s London.

Thirteen fabulous crime stories from Ben Westerham’s highly popular ‘Shorts in the Dark’ series. It’s time to take a wander into the darker recesses of the mind.


The Old Man’s Shed – School-boy Jacob Whistler finds his neighbour’s shed an irresistible temptation. But what is it he finds lurking inside?

Alone in the Dark - “There’s something about watching others in the night that appeals to me. It always has.”

The Pond - Revenge can come in many guises and sometimes from places we would never have expected.

A Pound Coin – Can a life really be worth so little?

Walking into Trouble – Family emotions can be more extreme than most.

A Parcel of Trouble – Private investigator Nat Gillies receives an unexpected parcel that he soon wishes he’d never set eyes on.

Money Love – When the love of money proves greater than the love of another human-being, the outcome is not likely to be a happy one.

'Harry Minch' - Revenge is a boomerang that garage owner Harry Minch fails to see coming.

'The Handbag' – A woman’s handbag can be more dangerous than you might think.

‘The Price of Envy’ - Charlie Mean is consumed by envy. For someone it will prove fatal.

'360 Degree Feedback' - They say feedback is a gift, but sometimes what it gives can be entirely unexpected.

‘The Old Hand’ - An ageing crook thinks it’s time to do a good deed, but is his help really wanted?

‘Obsession’ - Obsession can make a man blind to reality and drive him to the edge of madness.


It’s dark. It’s criminal. It’s unmissable.

For one young woman, a sizeable and unexpected legacy comes with the ultimate price-tag; her life.

A rural idyll in the depths of the Oxfordshire countryside is shaken to its foundations when the body of a beautiful woman is found at the bottom of a field-side ditch. Still smarting from the loss of his one-true love, Inspector Leslie Dykeman, accompanied by his irascible side-kick, Sergeant Stanley Shapes, is sent to investigate. What they uncover is a web of secrets, lies, jealousy and greed. But which of these, he asks himself, lies behind such a shocking murder?

A Legacy of Death is the fourth book in a classic murder mystery series set in the Oxfordshire town of Banbury in the early 1960s by British author Ben Westerham. If you like classic murder mysteries with a touch of romance and a streak of humour, then you’ll love these.

Who would have thought golf could be such a deadly game?

When two players stumble upon a dead body in a bunker on the thirteenth hole of their favourite golf club, their discovery is about to set in motion a series of events that will lay bare some of the less savoury aspects of the human condition.

Inspector Leslie Dykeman and the irascible Sergeant Stanley Shapes find themselves engaged on a case that will drive them to distraction as they begin to investigate the murder of a man who seems, at first sight, to have had no enemies. But first sight, they will discover, can be a deceptive thing, especially when deceit, greed, envy and desperation are at work.

The Golf Club Murder is the fifth book in a classic murder mystery series set in the Oxfordshire town of Banbury in the early 1960s by British author Ben Westerham.

A high stakes game of espionage in the best traditions of The Thirty-Nine Steps.



Spring 1912. Trainee solicitor, Alexander Templeman, boards the night-train north from London, feeling guilty at having left it so long since he last visited his godparents in the lowland hills of Scotland. Little does he know that his journey is taking him to the most terrifying experience of his life.

But when the challenge comes, will the inexperienced young man be up to the job or will he succumb to an unrelenting struggle with a cunning foe, that has as it’s prize not only his own life but the very future of the country he adores?

Ten fabulous crime stories from Ben Westerham’s highly popular ‘Shorts in the Dark’ series. It’s time to take a wander into the darker recesses of the human mind. It’s dark. It’s criminal. It’s unmissable.

A classic tale of espionage on the eve of the first world war.


A murdered British civil servant. Stolen Government documents. A fleeing German agent. Events that presage a desperate new assignment for secret service agent Alexander Templeman.

Tasked with helping to keep an escaping German scientist out of the hands of ruthless enemy agents, Templeman will soon find himself isolated and fighting for his very life. If the uncertain and inexperienced agent fails in his mission it will see Great Britain left at a potentially fatal disadvantage in the coming war.

The second adventure in this classic old fashioned espionage series, strongly flavoured with period details, marvellous characters and a fast-paced plot. If you like John Buchan and Erskine Childers then you’ll love this one.