David Morley

"It was not unusual for my father, Detective Inspector Eric Morley, to show me scenes of crime photographs and ask me to use my 'grasshopper mind,' as he called it, to say anything I thought about the pictures. He returned all the files and photographs except one, which was of himself, showing his broken nose after he was involved with a fracas with the serial killer Michael Copeland. Of course, nowadays this would be seen as inappropriate, as I was probably aged about 14 at the time. It was whilst working at Chesterfield college with the SEN group that I first heard the term ADHD. I believed at the time that it was just an excuse for bad behaviour, but after attending courses began to realise that I was on the spectrum, as I now know are many others. Being able to identify the courses for a 'grasshopper mind' and realising not all people think the same way as you do has enabled me to understand myself. ADHD is a process of thought. I wake up with it. There is no filter to your thoughts and you can have several ideas jumping in and out of your mind in a short period of time. Some of these ideas are unique and brilliant, others not so … I hope that some of the 'other' thoughts have been filtered out in my work!"

After he retired from the police, my father would reminisce about the cases and incidents of his former life. On one occasion he told me the story about his father’s younger brother, his Uncle Bob, and how he found out about his Special Branch record. I was intrigued and decided to write up the story as The Doubleday Connection, the first story in The Whitebait Papers. I used many of my father’s anecdotes, (and a few of my own) in the narrative of Doubleday and later, in my other works.

Britain in the 1850s, a time of austerity and cold war paranoia: Sir Roland Derwentwater, and his enigmatic secretary Mrs Giles, run the Co-ordination Department for British Intelligence. Sergeant Archibald Moss becomes a puppet in the schemes of the Department that eventually make him an unlikely hero.

In the closing stages of World War Two, military policeman Archie Moss is recruited to help solve the murder of his friend Captain Snow. A chain of events sees Moss investigating war criminals, traitors and the theft of Millions of Reichsmarks, unaware of the political manoeuvres taking place behind the scenes to obstruct them and suppress the truth.