From bus driver to crime writer for Stuart
A bus driver from Bilston has published a detective novel, set in his childhood home of Coventry.
Stuart Tidman has been a bus driver in Telford for the last three years, but has "very happy and joyful memories" of Coventry, which is the setting for his crime novel.
'The Nicholas Duncan Mysteries: Everyday', is set in 1973 and follows the escapades of a gay detective sergeant in the Warwickshire Constabulary CID.
Explaining the plot to his novel, Stuart said: "Coventry in 1973 was a much different place to what it is now. A ‘real man’ was known by the length of his side burns, ability to inform all of his work colleagues of his latest sexual conquest by first tea break, and to lie through their teeth over why the knuckles on his right hand were split and swollen after last Saturday night in Buster’s.
"Detective Sergeant Nicholas Duncan was not that sort of man. Sure, he could equally chain-smoke his way through a packet of twenty, consume his own body weight in alcohol and drive like his hair was on fire.
"It wasn’t his choice of tailor, nor the keys he held for his Alvis that made him different – Nick didn’t like women ‘that way’ – he was homosexual."
Stuart continued: "Over the course of the Easter holidays, Nick tries to stop a serial killer at large in the city preying on young women, while battling with his own paranoia and anxiety of having his sexuality exposed.
"At the same time, he seeks what we all are searching for - that certain someone to love.
"Events in his life remind Nick of the past, causing him to occasionally daydream of people he used to know, people he’d lost, aiding in coming to terms with the here and now.
"Nick feels of all the people he wants to explain about his sexuality is his now widowed mother – if he could only find an opportunity to tell her, and hoped above all hopes she wouldn’t react badly.
"Meanwhile, Nick shares a working relationship with a feisty and somewhat potty-mouthed female Scouse detective constable, Joan Cavanagh.
"The two detectives care about one another deeply, which spills over into their private life. Has the Merseysider misread the signs Nick is displaying?"
Everyday is published by Olympia Publishing of London. For more information go to olympiapublishers.com/book/the-nicholas-duncan-mysteries-everyday.
