Bøger af Richard Hernaman Allen

Reflections in poems and haikus on the covid-19 year, anchored in the events of a life

1967/8. Working on the introduction of Value Added Tax in a building by Holborn Viaduct, Nick Storey is astonished to find that a man's body in an apparent road accident is a colleague and that he apparently fell from a window of the building. The police appear to regard the incident as suicide, but the details and what Nick knows and learns about his colleague don't fit. After examining stuff left in his colleague's room and talking to people who knew him better, he discovers a man who was probably putting up a front of deceit, but was also involved in a secretive group sending each other quotes from Shakespeare and Jacobean playwrights, which seem to have hidden meanings. Getting to what they mean involves sleuthing in darkest Surbiton, a series of interviews with liars, staking out a pub in New Malden and finally a confrontation at St Andrew, Holborn with the murderer, who is both completely unexpected but also entirely explicable."Defenestration and Devilment" is the thirtieth book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

1997. Retired C&E Commissioner Nick Storey and his wife Rosemary (ex DCI in the Fraud Squad) are invited to visit the La Spezia offices of the Italian Customs and Guardia di Finanza by a retired senior official, in order to learn whether there is any corruption there. Sceptical that they will discover anything, Nick and Rosemary agree, but overnight they witness the aftermath of a massacre of "illegals" by a ship belonging to the authorities in a bay close to where they are staying. Their host advises them not to report it, as it will get nowhere but put their lives at risk. Not knowing the country, they agree. They are subsequently questioned by various people claiming to represent various law and order organisations, two devious British ex-pats and a local politician. After shots are fired over their heads in a deserted place as a warning, matters turn violent, brutal and ugly and their host, wittingly or unwittingly, places their lives at great danger. "Between the mountains and the sea" is the thirtieth-second book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

While working on the introduction of VAT, Nick Storey is asked to advise HQ staff looking at an experiment of an inland clearance depot (ICD). Regarding it as risky, he suggests various ways of minimising smuggling, including periodic inspections. When he joins the HQ staff on their inspection, it's plain that the controls are lax. Doing some unofficial investigation with Rosemary, they discover lorries using the ICD involved in smuggling scotch whisky and subsequently cigarettes. Complications occur, as the Chief Inspector's Office and the local Collection become embroiled and a Senior Inspector disappears, thought murdered and a warehouse employee beaten to a pulp. But it turns out that diamonds smuggled in African artefacts provide the way to identifying a violent and dangerous crook, who plans to take his revenge on Nick."Inland, Illicit & Incompetent" is the thirtieth-first book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

1992. Former members of Customs & Excise tell Nick Storey, now Director Outfield, that they believe that there is a secret network of corrupt VAT officials doing corrupt deals with City finance businesses, led by a former Deputy Chairman. Forced to tread warily to avoid tipping anyone off, Nick has to use whatever opportunities come to hand, including a sex-discrimination claim and a chance meeting at a philosophy lecture. But those he suspects show great skill in deflecting investigation, not least because, as Nick begins to believe, they have tentacles in whatever parts of the Department might discover what they are up to. It is only when Rosemary uses some of her Fraud Squad officers to investigate some of the firms involved, that a way into the network is found. Undeterred by snakes posted through their letterbox, Nick and Rosemary have to dash to the tax haven of Guernsey to nail the ringleaders, so that the "Ring of Gyges" finally stops providing invisibility."In a rich man's world" is the thirtieth-second book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

1965. Starting work in Customs & Excise HQ in London, Nick Storey comes across some strange people, including a bully and a very tall rude man with a violent friend. He strikes up a friendship with a colleague, who is subsequently stabbed to death in an alley near the Monument. Though the police believe it was a robbery, only his briefcase was taken. Helped by Rosemary and a purloined notebook, Nick comes across a strange brotherhood, based on ancient and arcane wisdom of Balqis, Queen of Sheba. He is also drawn into a plan to catch colleagues receiving illicit payments for the return of temporarily imported cars seized by C&E, which involves Rosemary going undercover. However, sorting these out costs another life and isn't without risk to their lives as well. "Misfits and Miscreants" is the twenty-eighth book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

1996. Nick and Rosemary Storey are enjoying a river cruise from Moscow to St Petersburg when two British passengers from their excursion group are murdered, apparently on return from a visit to Yaroslavl. The cruise line ask them to get statements from relevant British passengers before the ship docks in St Petersburg. Facing a curtain of lies and half-truths, tales of hidden Nazi gold, well-concealed Russian connections and unable to check much of what is said to them, they have to rely on inconsistencies, tweaking the Russian bear's tail and a bear trap to identify both a brutal killer and his paymasters, not without risk to their own lives. "Death on the Volga" is the twenty-seventh book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

1993. Concerns about former Soviet bloc weapons falling into the wrong hands leads to Nick Storey becoming a member of a Cabinet Office committee and a special committee of the World Customs Organisation (WCO). Having seized harmless ex-Soviet weaponry at Felixstowe, Nick?s belief that such materials would be imported into the UK is shaken. Claims made by his Russian opposite number about UK firms engaged in this trade lead to further, more serious seizures. But at a WCO meeting in Berlin, the Russian and his wife seek a private meeting with Nick and Rosemary, but are killed on the way there. Back-ullaging from the murder, Nick is able to identify who is running the smuggling operation, but what is being smuggled takes everyone?s breath away.?End of the road? is the twenty-third book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

1994. Customs & Excise staff in Dover find revolting pornography being imported by a Cabinet Minister. Various underhand attempts are made by the Minister to retrieve the porn or get the case heard before a compliant magistrate. But how does this link with the ?Hades Club? many of whose members are ?the great and the good? and whose initiation rite appears to be to take a woman off the streets and rape her? Nick and Rosemary Storey and colleagues go undercover to obtain evidence, but when the cat is let out of the bag, Nick is menaced by a gunman at a strange hotel in Birmingham where the C&E Board are having a ?retreat?. If the Minister wishes to save his own skin by outing even more highly-connected people, what are his chances of survival? And why has the centre of Government been so invisible while this was going on??It?s all over now, Baby Blue? is the twenty-fourth book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

A hundred-year-old body is discovered walled up in the flat above one owned by the daughter of Nick and Rosemary Storey. How did he get there and why? Deal was a notorious smuggling town and, as a former Customs Commissioner, Nick thinks it might be a smuggler or an exciseman. As a former Chief Inspector in the Fraud Squad, Rosemary prefers to find evidence. From censuses and other old archives, clues emerge. Could Samuel Rust, inventor of "Rust's Tonic" be involved? Or Gerard Culpeper, bankrupted by his brother Charles? Or two rival schoolmasters Percival Dromgoole and Jerome Barfoot? And why are their investigations causing someone to write threatening letters, which move on to a bomb in the petrol tank of their car? Will the concerns of the living enable Nick and Rosemary to discover the secrets of the dead, by way of some of the genteel towns in Kent?Richard Hernaman Allen is a former Commissioner of Customs & Excise, who has written nearly thirty detective stories, mostly set in Customs & Excise.

Smugglers of a powerful methamphetamine, nicknamed Òdilithium crystalsÓ , by speedboat and light aircraft kill themselves rather than be caught by Customs. Nick Storey, Collector London Port, identifies patterns of evidence and smuggling routes by small ships and light aircraft, which lead to several dubious businesses in South Essex, a City investment company and a Belgian security firm with antecedents in African mercenary operations. Tracking light aircraft movements to small airfields uncovers smuggled krugerrands and a longstanding feud between Derek Clyne (son of ÒFrank the skinÓ) and a rival, Benny Drew. To pressurise the suspects, Nick gets them together unawares, unwittingly causing a bloody conclusion. But that only serves to provide cover for the real crooks, masterminding a huge fraud.ÒEight Miles highÓ is the twentieth book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Along with the rest of the Civil Service, Customs & Excise are required by Government to market test some of their activities in competition with private sector firms. As the majority of market tests are in the Outfield, Nick Storey keeps a careful eye on how they are proceeding, especially ones where he believes Collectors may be trying to fiddle the results. He also suspects some of the private sector bidders of collusion.As the results come in, it becomes plain that not just that some bids have been fiddled and there is collusion, but that someone in the Department has leaked details to some of the external competitors. Detailed analysis and Rosemary going under cover in one of the private sector bidders identifies the people doing the leaking. Then the politics takes over, of course.?Market Forces? is the twenty-second book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Just promoted to the Board of Customs & Excise, Nick Storey is asked to help a Metropolitan Police enquiry into illegal arms sales to Morocco. Military hardware for "rockhopper" missiles misdescribed as telephonic equipment and destined for Morocco has been seized at Avonmouth. The exporters claim that they had Ministry of Defence approval, which the Ministry denies. Investigating a series of exports by British arms manufacturers indicates a pattern of implausible exports. The evidence increases after Nick arranges for a large cargo ship to be detained at Southampton. But as the net closes in on those involved in "Operation Ghost Sands", Nick, Rosemary and one of their daughters are targeted and even the outcome smells of rotten fish."Ghosts in the machine" is the twenty-first book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Despite Nick StoreyÕs reservations, London Port Collection are ÒtwinnedÓ with the port of Bordeaux in an EEC project. NickÕs counterpart in Bordeaux is equally suspicious, but examination of their trade reveals a lot of medicines and drugs being exported from London to Bordeaux for an international charity called ÔSant¿ MondialeÕ, but also many which are supposedly exported to Bilbao which invariably get diverted to Bordeaux. As Nick and his colleagues dig deeper, there seems to be a counterpart to these exports with both import and exports of similar medicines and drugs by a series of linked companies with shady origins. To get hard evidence about what is going on, Nick and Rosemary make an uncomfortable journey by sea to Bilbao. But as fingers start to point at ÔSant¿ MondialeÕ, prominent people, including a newspaper magnate, are deployed to attack Nick and Rosemary and their daughters.ÒMedicine ManÓ is the nineteenth book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise.

Nick Storey is asked to carry out a review of Cabinet Office security procedures, but learns from a contact in MI6 that the real purpose is to identify a mole leaking secrets to the Chinese. Making slow progress because of the defensive attitudes by Cabinet Office staff, he is diverted by a botched Investigation Division operation in Liverpool against a Chinese smuggling gang. Sorting that out gives him an idea how the microfilms with leaked secrets are sent to Hong Kong. A Chinese meal with the Cabinet Office "foo-yung club" in Soho, gives Rosemary the chance to spot how the microfilm is handed over. Discrepancies between what Cabinet Office staff and security guards say and the discovery of a secret door used by the "Cabinet Office ghost" narrows the field of suspects and a C&E operation nets the courier with the microfilm. What happens next makes a corkscrew look straight."The Corridors of Secrecy (aka Chinese Whispers" is the 17th book in a series of detective stories.

1985. As the new Collector London Port, Nick Storey inherits a Collection with low morale and weak performance in a declining port. Among the changes he makes, flexible use of staff to massively increase controls at random times, leads to the discovery at Tilbury of large quantities of cash in a mattress and cocaine in furniture destined for a new hotel to be built by an Italian company in the proposed development at Canary Wharf. The company claims no knowledge of the cocaine. Almost immediately the Assistant Collector at Tilbury is brutally murdered. A covert operation to follow a later shipment leads to the death of four smugglers, while trying to flee. As those responsible dive for cover, an old adversary, Kenneth King, emerges from the shadows seeking to persuade Nick to put him in the clear. But exactly who is responsible for shooting up Nick and Rosemary's home with machine guns?"Old Ghosts" is the eighteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise.

1979. Nick Storey is transferred to head up a new internal investigations unit required by Mrs Thatcher's new government. His unit uncovers several illegalities including thefts of Government property and a false travel expense claim by an official who subsequently kills himself. Nick is alerted to a massive undercover operation which appears to be both leaking large sums of VAT revenue and also involving illegal action by investigators. When he raises this, he finds most of the Board, from the Chairman down, lined up against him. As the operation goes belly-up, his opponents become nastier and it takes some quick thinking by Nick's team, and Rosemary putting her life in danger, before the case can be resolved. And even then, there are stings in the tail. "On a carousel" is the fifteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

1984/5. Nick Storey is seconded from Customs & Excise to review DHSS work to tackle benefit fraud. Ministers have received an anonymous letter alleging a large scale fraud involving National Insurance numbers. Nick and Rosemary go undercover in Newcastle as VAT inspectors to follow a trail of evidence linked to a series of companies owned by a Geordie ex-miner, Mick Sutton. As they start to close in, one of the suspects vanishes and appears to have been killed, on Sutton's orders. To avoid a similar fate, Nick and Rosemary corner the weakest link in the chain at Ponteland golf club and try to dismantle a criminal network based on blackmail."Ballad of a thin man" is the sixteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Nocturnal excursions enable Rakvir Stagarnik to gain useful information about who killed the Kerkrander and how the two Thanians were involved. Tracking some of these people leads to an empty house in a wealthy quarter of Ralchis and the realisation that a huge conspiracy is taking place. Through the intervention of a corrupt merchant and an old friend, Rakvir and Arhilka are able to put pressure on a high-placed merchant adventurer, while continuing the pretence of negotiating the sale of their "ghan". But before he confesses, he is captured and murdered by people who remain largely invisible. "Out of sight - 2 Invisible people" is the second of three volumes where Rakvir and Arhilka Stagarnik investigate murder and corruption in the City of Ralchis. It is part of the series which include "Through Fire" and "By Water", set in a distant planet, not too dissimilar from our own, written by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner of Customs & Excise.

1976. On return from the EEC, Nick Storey is working on excise duties. He comes across an export warehouse in Woolwich, which seems a little too perfect. Finding a suitable reason to check them out, he uncovers a large fraud, involving the diversion of duty-free exports to the home market. However, his investigation causes threats to himself, Rosemary and his family. But when the main suspect and his family are brutally murdered, Nick begins to suspect that something more important is going on. Following that trail leads to Rosemary and her daughters being menaced at gunpoint, the seizure of a dangerous package at Gatwick and a risky game of bluffing with the highly-placed criminals. "Our friends in the south" is the tenth book published in a series of detective stories mostly set in Customs & Excise by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

The expedition eventually reaches the island of the Qosidar, building a fort in the east, while a large number of ships attack the only known city of the great serpents, destroying them with fire and vitriol. After a further attack also routs the serpents, doubts begin to emerge about their nature. As the front of attack widens, tensions emerge between the commanders, which are exacerbated when many men are killed by the serpents. However, the return journey is marred by a huge storm which kills many, including, it is thought, Navrid-Kastvar and Kaarvi. Ashmara supports the returning Wafar before the Saldjaran, but leaves him to travel to the New World - Karia and then Thania - in search of her father.The fourth volume in the epic "By Water" is set in a distant planet, not too dissimilar from our own, written by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner of Customs & Excise, as a follow-up to "Through Fire".

1975. The Secretary of the EEC Commission asks Nick and Rosemary Storey to investigate a discrepancy of nearly £10 million in EEC money used to rationalise coal and steel production in EEC countries. They quickly identify transactions where the Commission has been defrauded and how it was carried out. But the fraudsters seem cautious and cunning, leaving few traces - except the involvement of a small man wearing glasses with very thick lenses and a Chinese pistol in the cupboard of a French-Vietnamese woman working in the area of the Commission where the fraud took place and who has since disappeared. Various leads and assumptions lead them to Vietnamese bankers and a Dutchman working in the Commission, all of whom may be spies. But who the fraudster is and what happens to him are completely unexpected. "Brussels Sprout" is the ninth book published in a series of detective stories mostly set in Customs & Excise by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

The crew of the "Syarduyar Arhilka" depart from the island of the Turven, leaving one member behind. After a long journey across desolate seas, they come upon a ruined city which appears to have been where giant serpents ruled over men, as slaves. Travelling north after many weeks, they eventually reach Saldankandul, in Kardakan. Fadshi-qar Wafar wishes to raise an army to attack the giant serpents - or "Qosidar" - on their island to prevent an attack by them. Unconvinced, Rakvir Stagarnik departs. Wafar convinces Saldjaran Manzir and Zgar Zavzar to conduct a campaign, but imperils his marriage to Rakvir's daughter Ashmara, who finds her father after a lonely journey through the Palqahcat mountains. While a great expedition journeys south for the "island of the Qosidar", Rakvir sets off east across the ocean on his own to prove his theory that the world is round. The third volume in the epic "By Water" is set in a distant planet, not too dissimilar from our own, written by Richard Hernaman Allen.

Suspicious visitors from across the ocean, who vanish once they reach Ralchis are followed by several untoward events, culminating in the brutal murder of a citizen of Kerkrand. Evidence suggests the Ralchis authorities wished to conceal it. Rakvir and Arhilka Stagarnik travel to Ralchis, in the guise of merchants from Kardakan attempting to sell 'ghan'. Negotiating with three merchants shows their remarkable duplicity and deviousness - and a city where wealth is concentrated among a small, arrogant merchant class, some of whom like to be known as "Old Thanians". Amid the summer heat and a wall of deceit, Rakvir and Arhilka struggle to get closer to the truth. "Out of sight - 1 a suspicious death" is the first of three volumes where Rakvir and Arhilka Stagarnik investigate murder and corruption in the City of Ralchis.

The crew of the "Syarduyar Arhilka" travel south, past contrary currents, giant waterspouts and barren, poisonous lands. Finally reaching an island of plenty, they encounter huge and aggressive serpents, one of which kills a member of the crew. Many more are discovered elsewhere on the island. A storm drives the ship further south to an island with enigmatic objects and inhabitants who have lived in isolation for over a thousand years, pursuing the "Way of Ttavmasi" (a version of Buddhism). The crew remain there for a while to learn and recuperate, while Rakvir Stagarnik and his grandson, Kaarvi, ponder the events of the journey (including an encounter with a huge sea-monster) and what it suggests about the nature of their world. The second volume in the epic "By Water" is set in a distant planet, not too dissimilar from our own, written by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner of Customs & Excise, as a follow-up to "Through Fire".

Ashmara Alahin accompanies a Thanian-Karian expedition across barren, barbarian-infested deserts and desolate, poisonous mountains, before finally arriving at the western coasts of the Old World. There they make a discovery which will change everyone's view of their world. During the gruelling return journey, the expedition's leader dies and barbarians seek to take advantage of the weakness of the travellers. But the return to Thania is problematic for some and when Ashmara returns to the New World with amazing news, for both Rako and her, she is too late to avert tragedy. Unable to discover what happened to her father, she is constrained by tragic events, settling for what she can do, rather than what she desired. But good fortune arrives and new possibilities open for others in the family of Rakvir and Arhilka Stagarnik. The fifth and final volume in the epic "By Water" is set in a distant planet, not too dissimilar from our own, written by Richard Hernaman Allen.

Still on secondment in an EEC counter-fraud organisation in early 1974, Nick & Rosemary Storey are asked to look at a case where wine has been adulterated by diethylene glycol. From their investigations, it appears that the problem is much wider: wine pur

Briefly seconded to a Purchase Tax office in London's East End, Nick Storey comes across evidence of a criminal organisation which includes loan-sharking, extortionate insurance and huge rent increases on properties previously owned by West Docklands Council, but offloaded to a dubious property company in suspicious circumstances. Believing the local police and press to be bought off, Rosemary and he track down the councillors involved in the shady deal. But when in the course of his "day job", Nick meets a lawyer who is plainly acutely nervous at seeing him, he realises he has a way to get the key to what has been going on. However, having to meet a gangster in an East End park and Rosemary requiring a weapon to keep them safe suggests sorting things out becomes far from straightforward. "Something in the air" is the seventh book published in a series of detective stories set in Customs & Excise by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

"By Water" follows the exploits of Rakvir Stagarnik following on the events in "Through Fire", as seen by his son Rako and eldest daughter, Asha. Wishing to embellish his capital, Zgar Zavzar manoeuvres to impose an extraordinary levy on his subjects. When Rakvir stands in his way, he attempts to get him killed. But his plot is foiled. However, triumph turns into disaster as Arhilka dies in her sleep. Unable to come to terms with his anguish, Rakvir wishes to die, but knows Arhilka would regard his suicide as dishonourable. So he organises an expedition to explore the uncharted southern seas in the hope and expectation that he will die in the course of the journey. With a crew full of unexpected people, he sets off into the unknown. The first volume in the epic "By Water" is set in a distant planet, not too dissimilar from our own, written by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner of Customs & Excise, as a follow-up to "Through Fire".