Michael Jecks


Michael Jecks is an English writer of historical mystery novels.

Early life

The son of an actuary, and the fourth of four brothers, Jecks worked in the computer industry before becoming a novelist full-time in 1994 after he was fired from his last position. He, his wife, daughter and son live in northern Dartmoor.

Career

Jecks has written a series of novels featuring Sir Baldwin Furnshill, a former Knight Templar, and his friend Simon Puttock, Bailiff of Lydford Castle. He founded The Medieval Murderers, a speaking and entertainment group of historical writers including Bernard Knight, Ian Morson, Susanna Gregory, Phillip Gooden and CJ Sansom. The group has developed to collaborate on their books written as linked novellas, each book with a consistent theme, under the brand of The Medieval Murderers. More recently he helped create the Historical Writers' Association.
A member of the Society of Authors and Royal Literary Society, Jecks was the Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association in 2004–05. In 2005 he became a member of the Detection Club. From 1998 he organised the CWA Debut Dagger competition for two years, helping unpublished authors to win their first contracts. He was shortlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculiar Best Novel of the Year prize in 2007. He also judged the CWA/Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for three years.
Jecks speaks at literary festivals and historical meetings, at which he talks with Ian Mortimer, the historian, as well as Medieval Murderers. He helped create the Conway Stewart Detection Collection with a pen named for him. In 2014 he was the Grand Master of the Krewe of Little Rascals parade, the first parade of the New Orleans Mardi Gras. In the same year he was invited to be the International Guest of Honour at the Toronto Bloody Words Festival.
Jecks has embarked on a trilogy of Hundred Years' War stories with Simon and Schuster UK. The first, Fields of Glory, was published in 2014. The second, Blood on the Sand, was published in June 2015. He also has a modern spy thriller published with Kindle, Act of Vengeance, and two short story collections: No One Can Hear You Scream and For The Love of Old Bones.

Knights Templar Mysteries

  1. The Last Templar
  2. The Merchant's Partner
  3. A Moorland Hanging
  4. The Crediton Killings
  5. The Abbot's Gibbet
  6. The Leper's Return
  7. Squire Throwleigh's Heir
  8. Belladonna at Belstone
  9. The Traitor of St. Giles
  10. The Boy Bishop's Glovemaker
  11. The Tournament of Blood
  12. The Sticklepath Strangler
  13. The Devil's Acolyte
  14. The Mad Monk of Gidleigh
  15. The Templar's Penance
  16. The Outlaws of Ennor
  17. The Tolls of Death
  18. The Chapel of Bones
  19. The Butcher of St Peter's
  20. A Friar's Bloodfeud
  21. The Death Ship of Dartmouth
  22. The Malice of Unnatural Death
  23. Dispensation of Death
  24. The Templar, The Queen and Her Lover
  25. The Prophecy of Death
  26. King of Thieves
  27. No Law in the Land
  28. The Bishop Must Die
  29. The Oath
  30. King's Gold
  31. City of Fiends
  32. ''Templar's Acre''

    Hundred Years War

  33. Fields of Glory
  34. Blood on the Sand
  35. ''Blood of the Innocents''

    Bloody Mary / Jack Blackjack Series

  36. Rebellion's Message
  37. A Murder Too Soon
  38. A Missed Murder
  39. The Dead Don't Wait
  40. Death Comes Hot
  41. The Moorland Murderers
  42. The Merchant Murderers
  43. ''Murdering the Messenger''

    The Medieval Murderers

  44. The Tainted Relic
  45. Sword of Shame
  46. House of Shadows
  47. The Lost Prophecies
  48. King Arthur's Bones
  49. Sacred Stone
  50. Hill of Bones
  51. The First Murder
  52. The False Virgin
  53. ''The Deadliest Sin''

    Short story collections

  54. No One Can Hear You Scream
  55. ''For The Love of Old Bones''

    ebook only

  56. ''Act of Vengeance''