Ray Clark Books In Order

Publication Order of Gardener and Reilly Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Graham Masterton Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Ray Clark
Ray Clark is an award winning author and born in Yorkshire. His first major break came in the year 1998, when “Manitou Man: The World of Graham Masterton was released and was later nominated for the British and World Fantasy Awards.

Since this time, Ray’s writing career has been rather varied with publications covering horror novels, short story collections, stand alone cross genre novels, and the “Gardener and Reilly” series of detective novels set in Leeds, a Yorkshire city.

Ray has spent a considerable amount of his life in the music industry working both in Europe and the United Kingdom as a guitarist and vocalist with many bands.

“Impurity” started out as nothing more than a brainwave. He was visiting a friend, and was trying to come up with something new and different to write. Ray had a notion to write a tale about an alternative Santa Claus, possibly the exact opposite of the nice and fat jolly chap he gets depicted as.

Following their meal and some drinks, his friend said that he should think outside the box. His friend recommended that he should try switching genres, rather than writing another horror story, and pen a piece of crime fiction. He said that horror was a dying market and all the best horror authors were diversifying by going into crime. The next question he asked sealed the deal for Ray. He asked what is even more horrific than killing somebody? If a writer is clever enough, you can write all the horror you want to and slip it right into the middle of some police procedural.

His idea involved a Father Christmas: the concept was to have somebody kill department store Santas. The friend couldn’t remember ever having read something like this.

Ray thought his friend had something. It quickly became the central theme for the novel. He had more things to consider. Like why anybody would want to kill department store Santas to begin with. Once he began researching, he realized he could have a ton of fun with the ‘how’. Ray wasn’t interested in a stabbing, or something involving a hanging or a gun. He needed something that nobody else had ever done.

He spent a considerable amount of time mulling it over with a few people, two of which were close friends of his. One a chemist and the other a detective in the murder squad. Ray knows that a chemist is an extremely valuable asset for anybody looking to bring a brand new concept to the word, murder.

Ray’s debut novel, called “Calix”, was released in the year 2008. His work is from the mystery genre.

“Impurity” is the first novel in the “Gardener and Reilly” series and was released in the year 2016. A murder without a motive or a weapon. A detective that is on edge. A community looking for answers.

A fateful night when DI Stewart Gardener is off duty, and intervenes in a street brawl and his wife ends up getting shot and killed. Attempting to come to terms with all this, he slowly returns to normal duties policing the streets in Leeds. Finding his wife’s killer is never too far from his mind, but without any leads and just a hazy recollection of events, it just seems hopeless.

Pretty quickly, he gets presented with a stunning case. A man is is found in a grubby apartment dead, having been killed in the most brutal of ways. It is not too long before another guy meets the same fate. Pathology is unable to ascertain the cause because the deaths have been caused by a violent and rapid disintegration of the victims’ flesh.

The only link between any of the victims is that they both worked as Santas, dressing up like Father Christmas and entertaining kids in grottos and the like. Who would really want to kill such innocuous guys as these?

The detective is confounded. The local community has been ruffled. And the press has a field day over it. The top brass wants to get answers. Will DI Gardener overcome his grief and be able to solve the case?

Here is a novel that crackles from start to finish, beginning with a bang and the tension is kept taut right up to the end.

“Imperfection” is the second novel in the “Gardener and Reilly” series and was released in the year 2017. Theater goers are treated to a gruesome spectacle of an actor’s lifeless corpse hanging on the stage, DI Gardener is called immediately to investigate. Could the killer still be in the audience?

A lockdown is put in motion, however, it is quickly apparent that the killer is able to come and go without being noticed. How is this possible? Is the killer an actor or a theater worker? What type of grudge do they have to bear?

Frustratingly, the murderer leaves behind a path of clues for the detectives. Taunted by these and confused as to what they mean, DI Gardener realizes that his family could be in danger. Identifying and capturing the killer means establishing the motive for their macabre crimes, however maybe not before even more victims meet their same fate. Will DI Gardener succeed where he failed previously, and protect his own?

“Implant” is the third novel in the “Gardener and Reilly” series and was released in the year 2018. Bramfield, near Leeds, is a sleepy tiny market town that is nestled on the borders of North and West Yorkshire. Detectives Sean Reilly and Stewart Gardner find the naked corpse of Alex Wilson, nailed to the wall of the cellar in the hardware store his uncle owns. His lips have been sewn together and his body bears a single mark, a fresh scar close to his abdomen.

Within just forty-eight hours, their investigation results in more victims, dead ends, zero suspects, and not much in the way of solid evidence. Reilly and Gardener have a problem and one question on hand. Are the residents of Bramfield really ready for one of the most sadistic killers in history, The Tooth Fairy?