William Shaw Books In Order

Publication Order of Breen and Tozer Books

Publication Order of DS Alexandra Cupidi Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

William Shaw is a journalist and a writer working in the United States and the United Kingdom. He is popularly known for his outstanding work such as Westsiders: Stories of the Boys in the Hood which narrates the chronicles of the group of Los Angelinos working to becoming prosperous hip hop artists. He is a former worker for the Details Magazine and remains a contributing editor. While working with the Detail Magazine, he spent several months in Utah desert where he lived with the Stone Age survivalist. While working cross burning Undercover with the Neo-Nazi Christianity in Idaho, later he began his journalism career working as an Assistant Editor for the Goth magazine ZigZag. Most of his works have been published in many publications around the world including The Independent and The Times. William Shaw first is Travelers’ was an oral history of Britain New Age Travelers.’

His second publication was Spying in Guru Land was published in 1994 a book which describes his account while working as a member of various British religious cults. His recent works are the police mystery novels set in London during the 1960’s featuring Woman Police Constable Tozer and Detective Sergeant Breen.

A Song from Dead Lips

It is the first novel in DS Breen and WPC Tozer series. The events set in the series takes place in London during the 1960’s.

The Runaway, a young lady, is found dead in St. Johns Wood. The preliminary results indicate that the woman was strangled and then stripped off her clothes. The African, the neighbors, want to blame everything on the black stranger who just moved in. The Pariah, DS Cathal Breen instincts tell her that there is more to the case but no one seems to be admitting the whole truth. The Outsiders, Detective Sergeant Breen finally gets a breakthrough from Farmgirl, the awkward chatterbox, and the first woman to enter murder unit.

Detective Sergeant Breen is a profound and sensitive character he is a unique person in a brutish squad room. His colleagues accuse him of deserting an injured member, and thus he becomes the subject of their dislike. After he is assigned the case relating to the murder of a young girl, he is given the wannabe detective WPC Helen Tozer to help him through his investigations but soon realizes that the friendly girl from Devon had her understanding of “assistant.”

Breen, through his inquiries, demonstrates his ability and knowledge in approaching both the victims and the suspects in a manner that is fashionable given that the novel is set during the 1960’s. On the other hand, he finds himself drawn to his assistant, and the interaction between them showcases the genuine and the human part of the story.

A Song from Dead Lips is an amazing novel to read. The author not only provides an excellent crime fiction but also gives an insight of what life was like in London during the sixties. The two lead characters Breen and his Assistant Helen Tozer are well crafted, and their interaction with each other is lively and carries the entire weight of the plotline with great ease.

A House of Knives

A House of Knives is the sequel to A Song from Dead Lips, featuring Breen and his assistant WPC Tozer. The book begins at night when Sergeant Breen is called out to investigate on a body in a fire razed house the same evening that his father dies. Even though he had spent much time taking care of his father, he still feels guilty that he was not near his old man during his last moments and this corrupts his minds to the extent that he cannot get the real identity of the body he was called out to investigate. A gas explosion subsequently reveals another dead person, and this time it is the body of a young man that had been brutally cut and mutilated. To make it worse, he is the son of the secretary of the state, and this means that Breen investigations have been hampered by the politician motives in avoiding negative publicity. Making thing even worst is the fact that Breen is receiving threats, but he does not take them seriously.

It is in 1968, and the young man who was found dead was part of swinging London; however, the author William Shaw demonstrates this on how unease this decade was as it was viewed by many during that time. The first book of the series majorly touched on police corruption with Sergeant Breen questioning fellow officer Sergeant Prosser regarding his activities. The theme in the second book is however entirely different. However there are some secondary characters from the first book that are also featured in the second book, so it is preferable to read the first novel before. The author has done an excellent job of creating fascinating characters which give depth to the first and the second novel and a vivid description of the era through which the book is set. The life of the London police force is characterized by fraud and corruption where almost every person has no respect for the code of loyalty. However, Breen fights against all the odds to ensure that he stands against the corrupt minded officers in his place of work.

A Book of Scars

A Book of Scars is the third novel in Breen and Tozer series by William Shaw. The year is 1969 and five years before this time, a teenage girl, Alexandra Tozer was murdered on her family farm. This is an awful event that Helen Tozer will never forget, and returning home after quitting her job; she brings with her Detective Sergeant Breen who gradually becomes obsessed with the mystery. He discovers that Helen family was never told the whole part of the story that Alexandra was tortured before she was even murdered. When he decides to track down the original investigating officer, the man goes missing as well as Helen.

Suspicions fall on Helen, but Breen is soon to find out that he is on a trail that goes beyond the death of a teenage girl and the two men connected in this case had met in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising. When another innocent lady is kidnapped, Breen knows that he is only got few hours to save her. This novel strips off the Drug Lords & Cartels, Kenya State of Emergency, and the turbulence of the society we know.