Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

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

This bio was last updated on 10/20/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

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 ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Andrew Taylor at BookBrowse
The Anatomy of Ghosts jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

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.
How we choose read-alikes

We recommend 5 similar authors

View all 5 Read-Alikes

Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Our Evenings
    Our Evenings
    by Alan Hollinghurst
    Alan Hollinghurst's novel Our Evenings is the fictional autobiography of Dave Win, a British ...
  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.