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Andrew Taylor Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Andrew Taylor

Andrew Taylor

Andrew Taylor Biography

Andrew Taylor (b. 1951) grew up in East Anglia and was educated at The King's School in Norfolk, and Woodbridge School in Suffolk. He read English at Emmanuel College Cambridge, and and has an MA in Library, Archive and Information Science from University College London.


At the time of writing his books include:

  • Eight mysteries in his William Dougal series (1982-1993) staring a postgraduate student of history with expensive tastes and low moral fibre, whom Harriet Waugh, writing in The Spectator, described as "one of the most attractive amateur detectives in fiction."
  • Six books based on the TV series, Bergerac, starring Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac, which he wrote under the pseudonym Andrew Saville between 1985 and 1988.
  • Three books in the Blaines series (1987-1990).
  • Eight mysteries set in the Welsh market town of Lydmouth (1994-2006).
  • Three suspense novels in his Roth trilogy about the Appleyard and Byfield families (1997-2002).
  • Thirteen stand-alone novels - most recently The Anatomy of Ghosts.

He is the only author to have won the Crime Writer's Association Historical Dagger twice, with The Office of the Dead and The American Boy.

He is married, with two children. and has lived for many years in Coleford in the Forest of Dean on the borders of England and Wales.

For a complete bibliography see FantasticFiction

Andrew Taylor's website

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Interview

"In Search of Lost Plots", an essay by Andrew Taylor, author of many critically acclaimed crime novels including the Lydmouth series, the Roth Trilogy and The Anatomy of Ghosts.

Recently [October 2011] the Cheltenham Festival of Literature asked me to run a workshop on plots, presumably on the assumption that I must know something about the subject since I make my living writing crime novels. But, as many novelists will confirm, the one doesn't necessarily follow from the other. You can drive a car without necessarily having the faintest idea about how to design and build the mechanics under the bonnet.

Still, the organisers had a touching faith in my powers so I did my best to assemble a few ideas that I and other novelists have found useful. But the hard truth is this: each novel is a different journey, and each author must make his or her own road map for it - and sometimes this can be done only afterwards, because we may not know our destination when we start.

Plot is a bugbear for many fiction writers, and a common source of writer's block. Characterization, theme, setting and dialogue seem to flow naturally and often enjoyably. But plot is where the process gets painful. There are no simple remedies - it's one thing to write a wonderful opening to a story but, to continue it and bring it to a satisfying ending, you need a plot. Your story needs a plot as your body needs a skeleton.

We are ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Andrew Taylor at BookBrowse
The Anatomy of Ghosts jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Andrew Taylor but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
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