Book 4

The Silver Stain

by Paul Johnston

Published 30 November 2012
Hired by a Hollywood film company to trace a missing employee in Crete, private investigator Alex Mavros is plunged into a vortex of hatred. The company is shooting a movie about the invasion of Crete by the Germans in 1941 - and their activities are stirring up old resentments among the islanders. The bitterness of the past bursts into the present when one of the film's consultants is found dead, hanged by the neck. Suicide - or murder? Mavros investigates and is drawn into an ever-widening conspiracy.

Book 5

The Green Lady

by Paul Johnston

Published 30 December 2011
Set against a glorious Greek backdrop, the intriguing new mystery featuring half Greek, half Scots PI, Alex Mavros. Hired by the wife of one of Greece's richest men to find her missing fourteen-year-old daughter, Mavros faces an uphill battle. But he's not the only one looking for Lia...When a man's charred corpse is discovered in a remote farmhouse, and the headless body of another is found in the ancient stadium at Delphi, Mavros confronts the possibility that one of his deadliest foes has returned to Greece, and that there may be a connection with the Lia Poulou case.

Book 6

The Black Life

by Paul Johnston

Published 1 December 2013

Alex Mavros takes on one of his strangest cases when he's asked to trace a man who's returned from the dead

The story is told in alternating chapters, a narrative set in the present day and also a first person harrowing account of the persecution of the Holocaust years. Whilst it is an indictment of the wartime collaboration and subsequent profiteering to which many countries turned a blind eye, and whilst it also underlines the extent of anti-Semitism still existing in Greece and elsewhere today, the novel also contains accounts of working life in the concentration camps and how survival of some Jews might depend on their working for the SS and even sending one's own family members to their deaths in the gas chambers.

This is the latest outing for half-Greek, half-Scottish Private Investigator, Alex Mavros - but this is really only a vehicle for the author's most far-reaching and ambitious novel to date.

The gripping dual narrative that follows provides readers with a fresh perspective into what makes Greece - that most volatile and fascinating of countries - tick, as well as shocking new insights into the atrocities of the Second World War and into what makes a man into a killer without conscience and guilt. If readers think they know all there is to know about the Holocaust, they should read Paul Johnston's The Black Life - and think again.

This is a harrowing read. The Black Life is the most moving work yet from an experienced, award-winning writer.


Book 6

The Black Life

by Paul Johnston

Published 30 August 2013
The story is told in alternating chapters, a narrative set in the present day and also a first person harrowing account of the persecution of the Holocaust years. Whilst it is an indictment of the wartime collaboration and subsequent profiteering to which many countries turned a blind eye, and whilst it also underlines the extent of anti-Semitism still existing in Greece and elsewhere today, the novel also contains accounts of working life in the concentration camps and how survival of some Jews might depend on their working for the SS and even sending one's own family members to their deaths in the gas chambers.

This is the latest outing for half-Greek, half-Scottish Private Investigator, Alex Mavros - but this is really only a vehicle for the author's most far-reaching and ambitious novel to date.

The gripping dual narrative that follows provides readers with a fresh perspective into what makes Greece - that most volatile and fascinating of countries - tick, as well as shocking new insights into the atrocities of the Second World War and into what makes a man into a killer without conscience and guilt. If readers think they know all there is to know about the Holocaust, they should read Paul Johnston's The Black Life - and think again.

This is a harrowing read. The Black Life is the most moving work yet from an experienced, award-winning writer.

Book 7

The White Sea

by Paul Johnston

Published 30 June 2014
Wealthy ship-owner Kostas Gatsos has been missing for several weeks, having been snatched from his luxury villa on the idyllic island of Lesvos. Curiously, there has been no ransom demand. When the police investigation stalls, the desperate Gatsos family turn to private investigator Alex Mavros for help. Inherently suspicious of the super-rich and initially reluctant to take on the case, Mavros finds himself dealing with a highly dysfunctional family with more than a few skeletons in its closet, a family whose tentacles have a surprisingly wide reach. Alex believes the key to the mystery lies in the ship-owner's shady past and sinister business deals - but the truth behind the kidnapping is more disturbing, and closer to home, than Mavros could ever have imagined.

The Black Life

by Paul Johnston

Published 31 July 2014