'The Brock and Kolla novels were among the first in contemporary crime fiction to feature a male-female police team as the central characters, playing complementary roles in the resolution of their cases. I liked the possibilities for human tension and for giving the reader alternative points of view which they provide, with Brock the older, more experienced man and Kathy his younger acolyte in London’s Metropolitan Police.
'They first meet up in The Marx Sisters, where Kathy, in charge of her first murder investigation, unexpectedly finds herself accompanied by the Scotland Yard heavyweight Brock, for reasons that only emerge during the course of the story, and which nearly bring Kathy’s career to a premature end. In the next story, The Malcontenta, Kathy is frustrated to be posted out of London, and enlists Brock’s support to investigate corrupt practices in a naturopathic clinic in the Kent countryside involving senior police officers. From this success she is able to join Brock’s elite unit within Scotland Yard’s Serious Crime Branch for the next case All My Enemies, in which we also learn something of Kathy’s family history and the childhood turning point of the suicide of her father.
'As the stories have continued, the relationship between the two detectives has gradually evolved, with Kathy becoming more self-confident and Brock more dependent on her insights and tenacity. Both Brock, divorced, and Kathy, single, have had relationships with other people during the series, which also features a number of other regular characters both within and outside the police force, but it is the bond between the two main players which provides the central dynamic of the stories.
'Each book is set in a different part of London and its surrounds, where I grew up and which I now return to as a partial stranger. I like to think of the detectives waiting for us at the start of each story, ready to lead us into a new and maybe unexpected part of the city. I have always loved the strong part that atmosphere and a sense of place play in crime fiction, and my architectural background contributes to that. The buildings and laneways are, for me, another set of characters in the books. The crime gives the detectives entry into the secret corners of the city, and also opens up the private activities of its people.
'Each book also has a particular theme based around some obsessive interest of the characters – naturopathic medicine in one book, philately in another, amateur theatre in another, and so on. Researching these obsessions is for me one of the most intriguing parts of writing the books.'
'On the Brock and Kolla Novels', Barry Maitland
'In one of the finest and most pivotal books in the critically acclaimed Brock & Kolla series, DS Kathy Kolla reports to New Scotland Yard and to DCI Brock's Serious Crime Division.
'Just before Kolla is to start her new job, a young woman is found viciously murdered in a leafy, well-heeled suburb, and the grotesque details of the slaughter appear to be well rehearsed, even theatrical. Assigned to the case, Kolla's only improbable lead draws her to a local amateur drama group. Once in their orbit, she is lured into a piece of theatre, over which, increasingly, she has little control.
'In All My Enemies, Brock and Kolla find themselves in a tangled web of secrets, lies and murder.' (From the publisher's website, 2012 Allen & Unwin edition.)
'When Marion Summers - red-haired, beautiful and mysterious - collapses and dies in the rarefied surrounds of the London Library, DI Kathy Kolla and DCI David Brock are sent to head the investigation. Kathy finds a reluctant kinship with the feisty Marion, who had, like Kathy, left a difficult home life when young and struck out to London for independence.
Marion's research on the intriguing, adulterous circle of artists, wives, lovers and muses around Victorian artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti seems irrelevant until the use of arsenic arises. As Brock and Kolla get closer to the truth, another victim dies an excruciating death by poison in a library, and it looks like a serial poisoner is on the loose.' (From the publisher's website.)
'DCI David Brock and DI Kathy Kolla, of Scotland Yard, find themselves pulled into a case of murder, a mysterious death among the houseboats that line the canals around greater London
'DI Kathy Kolla of Scotland Yard is called in as a matter of course by the local Paddington police when a woman turns up dead in what appears to be an accident. On her houseboat, Vicky Hawks is found by one of her neighbors having apparently succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning due to improper ventilation of the narrowboat’s heating system. But while the cause of death seems apparent and there’s no reason for Kolla to think otherwise, something about this death still bothers her.
'Meanwhile, her boss, DCI Brock, is wrestling with harsh budget cuts and a new Commander who is determined to make fundamental changes to the system—including limiting resources devoted to investigations. Struggling against the limitations imposed by the new order at Scotland Yard, Brock and Kolla find themselves pulling at the loose strings in the death of Vicky Hawks, trying to find out who she really was, what she was up to, and how her death might be related to another earlier tragic accidental death.' (Publisher's blurb)
'Newly promoted Detective Chief Inspector Kathy Kolla investigates a series of brutal murders on Hampstead Heath. Under intense pressure to find answers, she arrests the unlikely figure of John Pettigrew, a failing London publisher who lives alone on the edge of the Heath. Pettigrew's lawyer calls on recently retired David Brock for advice, and soon, unable to resist the pull of investigation, the old colleagues Brock and Kolla are at loggerheads.
'At the heart of the gripping mystery of the Hampstead murders lies a manuscript of an unknown novel by one of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century. Brock believes that its story will unlock the puzzle, but how?'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'When the Russian wife of the owner of one of the most valuable private collections of modern art in the UK is found dead, Detective Chief Inspector David Brock is drawn into a high-stakes world very different to his own. From the dealers and galleries in London's West End, his investigations take him to Hanover, Miami and New York on the trail of international forgery and fraud.
'At the same time, his old colleague Detective Chief Inspector Kathy Kolla, who now leads one of the Metropolitan Police Murder Investigation teams, finds herself at the wrong end of a corruption charge. With her whole career in the balance, she will do almost anything to clear her name.'
Source : publisher's blurb