R.J. Mitchell Books In Order

Publication Order of Gus Thoroughgood Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

R.J. Mitchell is a former police officer from Glasgow turned author of crime fiction novels. He draws much of his novels from his experience working in the police service where he served for more than 12 years. He spent more than a decade writing for the Glasgow Evening Times and is currently a freelance sports journalist. As such, he has good understanding and knowledge of the people and city of Glasgow as portrayed in his gritty crime fiction. He grew up in Stirling and went to Riverside Primary school and then Wallace High School. Mitchell started out as a Black Hill Police beat cop then moved to Baird Street in the North before he started dabbling in sports journalism. By 2001 he was enjoying a successful freelance journalist career and interviewed the likes of Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson. He decided to resign from the Strathclyde Police and become a full-time sports journalist with Airdrie and Coatbridge Advertiser. He was working for the Glasgow Evening Times as a sports journalist by 2004 and still writes for them specializing in rugby, boxing and SPL football. In January 2007, he started writing the manuscript for Parallel Lines which was a mystery thriller set in Glasgow that featured his most popular character DS Gus Thoroughgood and his associate DC Kenny Hardie.

Mitchell had always wanted to write a novel from his experiences ever since he was in the police service. However, he never did find the time and the fact that he changed careers and got into journalism meant that he had to shelve the idea yet again. In 2007, his appendix burst and while in recovery he had the perfect opportunity to have a go at writing crime fiction. Having spent more than 12 years in the police service meant that he had a ton of experiences and a treasure trove of characters and ideas to draw upon. For Mitchell who also loves to read, his biggest influence is Bernard Cornwell. While he does not write crime fiction, Mitchell loves the action, color and character-driven nature of Cornwell’s novels. In terms of inspiration from crime fiction authors, his biggest influence is “Inspector Morse” by Colin Dexter which he believes is the ultimate novel in the genre. While he had all manner of ideas, getting published was not as easy as he had envisioned as just getting an agent was difficult. His agent loved his manuscript and said it looked like a cross between a Martina Cole novel and life on Mars but he just could not get a book deal. It was not until four years after he had finished writing “Parallel Lines: The Glasgow Supremacy” that he got it published in 2011.

Mitchell has a lot of experience from which to draw but he still conducts research for his works. For instance, he asserted that he had to do a lot of research on terrorism and terrorists for “The Hurting: The Glasgow Terror” his second novel about a terrorist attack in the city. “The Longest Shadow” his third novel was inspired by the murder of Gertrude Canning. He themed the novel as something of a cover-up by the establishment that still goes on to this day. A lot of his characters are based on real-life people he met in the job since he found them too colorful and too interesting not to use. However, he tends to make his characters a combination of two or three people rather than just one character. R.J. believes that what makes his novels so different as compared to other Scottish crime fiction works is the real-life experience he brings. He writes believable characters in action-driven sequences full of themes of revenge, heartbreak, and betrayal which makes the novels so realistic.

R.J. Mitchell’s “Parallel Lines: The Glasgow Supremacy” is a fast-paced and edgy thriller set in Glasgow. It tells the story of the deadly conflict between Gus Thoroughgood the detective sergeant and Declan Meechan his criminal archenemy. Meechan has been working hard and after beating most of his major rivals into bloody obedience and is on the cusp of gaining total control over the highly profitable drug trade in Glasgow. Thoroughgood is determined not to let him take control of the city and has vowed to bring down the whole operation and arrest Meechan. The deadly intensity of their rivalry is heightened when Celine Lynott comes back into town. Lynott once broke the detective sergeant’s heart and though it has been ten years since, he still felt a sharp pain in his chest when he learned that she had agreed to marry Meechan.

The second novel of the Gus Thoroughgood series “The Hurting: The Glasgow Terror” opens to the detective sergeant recuperating from the injuries he got in the first novel. It was such a bad experience that Thoroughgood is considering leaving the Glasgow Police force and law enforcement altogether. He had handed in his resignation but when he left Castlebrae where he had been convalescing, he is forced to go back to work. Teaming up with Hardie, he is soon in the middle of a complex web of terrorism that threatens to destroy Glasgow. The duo is back in action as they work with MI5 seeking to unearth who is responsible for the terrorist attacks. They are soon trawling the seedy underworld of Glasgow, which reveals a sophisticated web of international terrorism. Mitchell draws from his more than a decade experience as a police officer to provide an accurate depiction of police processes as he guides his readers through a convoluted plot of deception and lies.

“The Longest Shadow” by R.J. Mitchell sees Thoroughgood return to the streets of Glasgow. Skeletons from his past are threatening to destroy his future and he will need to throw everything at it to ensure he survives the onslaught. He is on the trail of a man believed to the deranged leader of a vicious gang that has been responsible for abduction and murder. While he is relentless in his chase of his man that results in a death and life struggle atop the most famous of landmarks in Glasgow, he just may have the wrong criminal. He came very close to death in his efforts to put to an end the gang but then he gets pulled into a battle of control over the Roxburgh Whisky dynasty. He leads a complicated love life and he soon learns that his girlfriend comes from the famous whiskey family. A cold-blooded killer is intent on wiping out the entire family and Thoroughgood finds himself in a race against time to find the man before he kills the woman he loves. A haphazard investigation pointed at the guilty party being a powerful leader of the Triad. But things are not as they seem even as time is running out for him to save Victoria Roxburgh, the only surviving of the Whisky dynasty siblings.