About Me
I was born in Kingston-Upon-Hull, Yorkshire. After studying in Oxford for ten years, I took up a lectureship at the University of Leeds in 1976, and since 1999 I’ve been Professor of 18th Century English Literature (Emeritus 2018). Some of my books include Pope’s Imagination (1984), English Poetry of the Eighteenth Century (2004), and Organising Poetry: The Coleridge Circle (2009). Chocolate House Treason (2019) is my fictional début, followed by The Devil's Cathedral (2021) and Captain Hazard's Game (2022). I left the fascinating world of Queen Anne's London, travelling this time to a 'cosy' fictional village in the Cotswolds to write my latest 'whodunnit', Graham and the Flitchcombe Murders, which was published in summer of 2026 – not before time!
David explains:
“Cosy crime is inordinately popular right now, on film and TV also. Richard Osman especially has given it vast publicity. I love cosy crime but deplore how the genre is treated as something lightweight and escapist. It needn’t be. Cosy crime can tackle major themes with humour and be of the highest literary value. I’ve aimed to do both and write a classic of the genre while being amused.”
About My Books
Graham and the Flitchcombe Murders
Cosy crime with a delicious twist...
When the Flitchcombe-on-the-Water Book Club invites a crime writer into their midst, what could possibly go wrong?
When macho thriller writer “Tom Stone” is rebranded by his agent as “Tamara Wilde, Mistress of Cosy Crime”, Graham Tomlinson swaps Yorkshire noir for the picture-postcard Cotswolds, only to find that the village of Flitchcombe-on-the-Water is far from cosy. With its eccentric locals, simmering feuds, and a book group bristling with dark secrets, he is surrounded by irresistible material for his new novel. But when the man he has chosen as the victim in his fictional plot turns up dead, fiction and reality collide spectacularly.
From drugged hunting dogs to clandestine rites on Gallows Hill, Graham is drawn into a tangle of ancient scandals and modern crime. His life depends on him embracing both sides of himself – the tough Tom Stone and intuitive Tamara Wilde – and uncovering the truth before it is too late.
BUY HERE: https://bookguild.co.uk/bookshop/crime-and-thrillers/graham-and-the-flitchcombe-murders
Captain Hazard's Game
COVENT GARDEN, October 1708.
Setting up a Basset table at the Bay-Tree turns out to be one of Widow Trotter’s less successful ideas. Murder and scandal come uncomfortably close as she and her friends Tom and Will are drawn into the frenzied world of gaming and stock market speculation. Ruin hovers over the Pophams, and the chocolate house itself is in danger. The trio need all of their boldness and ingenuity to solve the murder mystery and uncover a cabal that threatens not only the Bay-Tree but the City of London itself. With the help of friends old and new they must counter-plot and mount their own conspiracy.
The Devil's Cathedral
THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, 24 April 1708.
A performance of Macbeth is under way when disaster strikes and the stage becomes a scene of elemental chaos – and for Widow Trotter and her friends at the Bay-Tree Chocolate House, a new adventure begins, involving murder, poison, fire, and a rogue elephant . . .
Devoted fans of Chocolate House Treason will welcome this second novel in the Chocolate House Mysteries series, which captures all the energies of the early eighteenth-century theatre. We move among the eccentric characters of the Theatre Royal company, in Drury Lane and at the exuberant May Fair where the actors moonlight in the fairground booths.
The puritanical reformers are determined to close the theatre and abolish the Fair, and ‘accidents’ begin to happen – but Mary Trotter and her friends at the Bay-Tree are determined to expose the conspiracy, and the action reaches its climax at the Fair when the players are faced with the ultimate act of terror.
Once again, David Fairer offers the delights of the classic eighteenth-century novel, intricately weaving a murder mystery with authentic history, and bringing the London of Queen Anne to life.
Chocolate House Treason
COVENT GARDEN, January 1708.
Widow Trotter has big plans for her recently-inherited coffee house, not suspecting that within days her little kingdom will be caught up in a national drama involving scandal, conspiracy and murder...
Queen Anne s new Great Britain is in crisis. The Queen is mired in a sexual scandal, spies are everywhere, and political disputes are bringing violence and division. The treasonous satirist Bufo is public enemy number one and the Ministry is determined to silence him. Drawn into a web of intrigue that reaches from the brothels of Drury Lane to the Court of St James s, Mary Trotter and her young friends Tom and Will race against time to unravel the political plots, solve two murders, and prevent another.
BUY HERE: Chocolate House Treason - Troubador Book Publishing