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M .J.Trow bills himself in many of his books as the only Welshman who cannot sing or play rugby. A military historian by training, graduating from King’s College, London and Cambridge, he has spent most years of his life at the chalk face of comprehensive schools which has given him the inspiration for his latest fictional detective Peter ‘Mad Max’ Maxwell.
The first detective series appeared in 1985 in the form of Inspector Lestrade, late of the Conan Doyle canon and after sixteen hilarious, bloody and intriguing outings, the world’s second greatest detective hung up his bowler … or did he?
In fiction, Mad Max, history teacher by day, private detective by weekend, has now solved 14 bizarre cases, each with its own brand of humour and sadness.
Wearing his true crime hat, M.J.Trow took the lid off the Craig and Bentley case with Let Him Have It which helped in the long fight to clear Derek Bentley’s name. The Wigwam Murder and The Many Faces of Jack the Ripper followed, examining slaughter across sixty decades in the classic tradition.
Turning to pure biography, Trow has earned a reputation as a scholar who peels away legend to reveal the truth. In topics as diverse as Kit Marlowe, Vlad the IMpaler, Boudicca and Cnut, he succeeds in bringing to life not only the central characters, but their times.
An experienced ghost writer and researcher, he lives with his wife, also a writer, in a Victorian vicarage in the Isle of Wight and has been aided in his recent fact books by his son, who now, irritatingly enough, has one more degree than his father!
A talented artist as well as writer, M.J.Trow has designed the covers for many of his novels and more recently has drafted maps and line illustrations for his biographies. He has also lectured with great success in Britain and the USA, most recently keeping an audience spell-bound at the Cheltenham Festival with a lecture on Kit Marlowe which was broadcast in Australia.
how I found the agency
"After a five-book series, my publishers decided to dispense with my considerable services and I realized I needed an agent! I stuck a pin in the Writers and Artists Year Book, came up with Farquharson (Curtis Brown) and had lunch with "their Mr Lownie'. Over an excellent lunch, Andrew told me he was going solo a week later and gave me a choice: did I want to stay with Farquharson or go with him. There was, of course, no contest. The rest is History (plus a bit of True Crime, Crime Fiction, Ghosting, Lectures etc., etc.)."subscribe to agency's newsletter
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