Denise
Beddows

Award winning author of the best-selling series of contemporary espionage thrillers The Thames House Files, and also true crime .

Winner of the Georgina Hawtrey-Woore Award for non-fiction. Awarded the Chill With a Book readers' Premier Book and Book of the Month awards January 2023. Shortlisted and awarded a 'Highly Commended' at the True Crime Awards 2024.

About Me.

Having been educated at Notre Dame High School, Manchester; SALTEC; Manchester's Goethe Institut; SOAS (London University's School of Oriental and African Studies), and Lisbon's Instituto Cervantes, I am am an enthusiastic speaker of six languages. I am also fortunate enough to have lived, worked and played in a variety of countries across three continents during a career in government service.

With a background in investigation, research and intelligence analysis, nowadays I write both contemporary crime/espionage thrillers and true crime as Denise Beddows. Writing also as DJ Kelly, I publish biographical fiction and local history.

As a member of the Crime Writers Association and the Society of Authors, I have published sixteen books to date, including my best-selling series The Thames House Files which reflects the challenges facing MI5's Counter-espionage team. I have also published over a hundred articles in local, national and international press and journals, and I review books, films and plays for a variety of publishers and journals.

I am a volunteer researcher for my local history and heritage group, The Celfunde Inheritance. I am also the founder of the Chiltern Kills Crime Writing Festival in Gerrards Cross, and I actively support Chalfont St Giles & Jordans Literary Festival. I enjoy also my role as regular guest speaker for various community groups. Married with a grown up daughter, Dr Amy Beddows, I live in leafy Buckinghamshire with my husband Terry, and Harry, our whippet companion.

Please keep an eye out for more books in my Thames House Files series, currently published by SpellBound Books, and also my forthcoming series The Pennsylvania Avenue Files, featuring FBI special agent Mike McVeigh.

Denise Beddows' Latest Releases

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Cheshire Housewife Laura Roberts is shocked to learn her businessman husband has died in Pakistan. She is even more shocked when the body that is brought back is not his, but that of a shooting victim. Is Keith Roberts really dead? If so, how did he die and where are his remains?

Against all advice, Laura travels to the Taliban-controlled Khyber region seeking answers. Captivated by the romantic fortified villages of the Pashtun people, she finds that nothing is quite as it seems and no-one is exactly who they purport to be. Sensing a complex conspiracy, she soon finds herself taken captive in the lawless gunsmiths' town of Dara Adam Khel.

Meanwhile, MI5's Counter-espionage officers come under attack from an invisible force as they track the secret activities of Russia's unofficial mercenaries - all the way from the north west of England to the north west of Pakistan.

This is book #5 in the Thames House Files series of espionage thrillers and is Amazon's No 1 best seller in Political Thrillers & Suspense.

Published by SpellBound Books. Available in Kindle and paperback.

ISBN: 9781838425272

ASIN: B0CJR6HNR4

*JUDGED 'HIGHLY COMMENDED' AT THE TRUE CRIME AWARDS 2024.*

In the 1920s, America's first recorded serial sex killer was believed to have strangled 22 victims all across the continent, from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast, until his arrest in Canada. The author's research, however, suggests he attacked at least twice that number. Whilst much has been written about the necrophile whom the press dubbed 'the dark strangler' and 'the gorilla killer', his tragic victims, mis-named in many accounts, have been largely ignored.

Those victims - one being the author's own ancestor - and those women and girls who actually survived his attacks, are presented here as individuals, along with an account of the odd life and ironically appropriate death of Earle Leonard Nelson.

Available in paperback from Amazon and book stores

Misbourne Press ISBN: 9798857732809

All royalties are donated to the charity Women's Aid.

THE THAMES HOUSE FILES - A best-selling series of Espionage thrillers - all of which made Amazon's Top 5 list.

THE HUNT FOR WOTAK

The Cold War has never been colder than in 2020’s Brexit-era Britain. The United Kingdom faces the prospect of becoming dis-united and there is sporadic violent civil unrest. A series of cyber-attacks of growing severity affects all areas of daily life. Meanwhile, a hostile, foreign state mounts regular incursions into Britain’s airspace and territorial waters.

In the midst of the mounting chaos, a sinister entity calling himself WOTAK claims responsibility for much of this ‘hybrid warfare’ and seeks to hold the nation to ransom. A series of brutal murders, including that of the Foreign Secretary, raises the pressure on The Joint Intelligence Committee to establish who or what is WOTAK.

With a little help from his friends, the Security Service’s Harry Edwards seeks to track down and neutralise WOTAK. However, he has no idea of the enormous personal cost this complicated operation will involve.

WHEN THE GREY WOLF SINGS

When an elderly Russian is burned to death in his car in north London, his 72-year-old friend, former KGB man Nikolai Volkov, determines to avenge his death. In the days that follow, the British Prime Minister goes missing; a wealthy Russian crime boss is mysteriously poisoned in Britain’s most secure prison, and the body of a youth is found at one of the UK’s most secret Ministry of Defence bases.

Meanwhile, a drone attack is mounted on MI6’s London HQ; a popular politician’s damaging personal secret is leaked, and a young child is kidnapped. All this occurs against the background of the continuing ‘cyber-war’ waged on the west by Russia, and a global viral pandemic, both of which threaten the health, the economy and the security of the nation.

A LONG ROAD TO REVENGE

A decades-old Russian bio-terror weapon is being deployed on the streets of London. People with no apparent connection are dying horribly, and there is no clear motive. MI5’s Harry Edwards and Counter Terrorism Command’s Detective Inspector Kit McGlone identify potential suspects – only to see them assassinated too. What deadly secret did the murder victims share, and who is killing the killers?

SHEARWATER POINT

Boston lawyer Dom Caffrey arrives in Northern Ireland to seek his biological parents, but soon finds himself arrested on suspicion of murder.

MI5 intelligence analyst Carole Murray also comes to the province to bury her murdered uncle. Events lead them to Shearwater Point, a stunning spot on the County Down coast.

However, the breath-taking beauty of the location hides a dark history of cruelty, human exploitation and murder. Meanwhile, nearby, a sinister, ultra-right group is plotting a major terror attack.

**Amazon Number 1 best seller in its genre. Winner of the Chill With A Book Readers' Premier Book Award, and voted their Book of the Month in January 2023. **

Denise Beddows' true crime books are also available from Amazon.

ODD MAN OUT

In 1948, the Lancashire mill town of Rawtenstall was rocked by its first ever murder. The victim, described by her own family as 'abnormal', was found brutally beaten to death in her own home. Just five days later, a suspect, also deemed 'abnormal', was arrested.

This is the true and tragic story of transgendered bus conductress Margaret 'Bill' Allen, who barely knew the victim but who, despite desperate campaigning by her loving friend Annie, was hanged for a seemingly motiveless murder.

Did 'Bill' do it? If so, why? Seventy years on, the author uncovers evidence which was suppressed at the time, and asks whether society's treatment of 'Bill' would be very much different today.

THE CHEETHAM HILL MURDER

In 1933, 61-year-old Frances Levin, described, inaccurately, as a wealthy Jewish widow, was brutally attacked in her home in Manchester's then affluent Cheetham Hill suburb.

Following the biggest manhunt Manchester's CID had ever undertaken, Billy Burtoft, a homeless meths addict, was hanged for her murder in what was believed to be a robbery gone wrong.

A recent BBC TV programme proved that Burtoft could not have committed the murder. Denise Beddows now uncovers police corruption and malpractice and reveals a more likely motive and a much more credible suspect who was never investigated.

Denise Beddows