Denise
Beddows

Award winning author of best-selling espionage thrillers and also writer of cozy crime novels and true crime

Awarded the Chill With a Book readers' Premier Book and Book of the Month awards January 2023. Shortlisted at the True Crime Awards in 2024 and 2025.

About The Author

As a speaker of six languages, and with a background in research, investigation and intelligence analysis, Denise enjoyed a career in government service, much of it spent living and working in numerous overseas locations, and which saw her tear-gassed, mortar-bombed, held at gun-point by sky marshals, briefly taken hostage and twice arrested.

Nowadays, she experiences her adventures vicariously through her novels which she writes in a Japanese teahouse she built at the bottom of her garden as a lockdown project. She helps organise the Chalfont St Giles & Jordans Literary Festival, and quarterly ‘Meet the Authors’ events in support of her community library, and she conceived and organised the ‘Chiltern Kills’ crime writing festival in Gerrards Cross. She has made several TV appearances, most recently with Fern Britton in ‘No Place Like Home’.

Denise is married with a grown-up daughter and lives in Buckinghamshire with her husband and their whippet companion Harry.

Crime thrillers: Denise writes crime/espionage fiction featuring strong female characters, and the first five books in her MI5 series rocketed into Amazon's Top 5 best seller list, with two ['Shearwater Point' and 'The Kohat Connection'] hitting Amazon’s No 1 best seller spot. 'Shearwater Point' also won two ‘Chill with a Book’ readers' awards.

Cozy crime: Denise’s latest venture is a new series of cozy crime books, the Misbourne Murder Mysteries, set in the scenic villages of Buckinghamshire’s Misbourne Valley and featuring a band of Third Agers – armchair sleuths and members of their local University of the 3rd Age, who set about solving local murders, whether local CID head DI Bernard Hogget approves or not. The first book in the series – ‘Who Killed Emerald Isacson?’ – was published in 2025 and thirteen more books in the series are already plotted and in draft.

True crime: Her first true crime book 'Odd Man Out: A Motiveless Murder?' won an award for non-fiction and her second, 'The Forgotten Forty-Four: Victims & Survivors of America's First Serial Sex Killer', was short-listed in the 2024 True Crime Awards ‘Book of the Year’ award, being runner up and achieving a ‘Highly Commended’. This book features her own ancestor who was amongst the victims of the 1920's 'Gorilla Killer' Earle Nelson. Her third true crime book ‘The Wronged Man: A Miscarriage of Justice’ has just been shortlisted for the 2025 True Crime Awards, too, and she is currently writing ‘The Second Man: A Miscarriage of Justice?’.

Denise Beddows' Latest Releases

On a hot July afternoon in 1933, Frances Levin, 61, was brutally beaten to death in her own home in Manchester's then affluent Cheetham Hill.

Following the biggest manhunt Manchester's CID had ever undertaken, William Burtoft, a homeless meths addict, was convicted and hanged for her murder in what was said to have been a robbery gone wrong.

In 2018, the BBC TV programme Murder, Mystery and My Family re-visited the case and concluded that Burtoft's confession was coerced and that the verdict, which saw Burtoft convicted and executed, was unsound.

Over ninety years later, the author uncovers police corruption, legal malpractice and reveals a more likely motive and an obvious suspect who was never even questioned.

This was clearly a tragic miscarriage of justice.

Shortlisted for the 2025 True Crime Awards

When US diplomat Walt Edelman is fatally injured at a London underground station, his briefcase - believed to contain details of western agents in Russian-occupied Ukraine - goes missing.

MI5's Counter-espionage officers investigate and discover a Russian sleeper within the US administration.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, 50-year-old experienced PA Verona Brooks is deeply unhappy in her new post at the UK embassy. Undervalued and exploited by her boss, she uncovers his shabby personal secret.

Things begin to look up when she is befriended by Aleks, a handsome young student.

But soon, she is caught up in a web of deceit, deadly intrigue and treachery.

Published by SpellBound Books in paperback & kindle

ISBN 9781068665561

ASIN B0D6YZ7N8C

No product

Cheshire Housewife Laura Roberts is shocked to learn her businessman husband has died in Pakistan. She is even more shocked when the body that is brought back is not his, but that of a shooting victim. Is Keith Roberts really dead? If so, how did he die and where are his remains?

Against all advice, Laura travels to the Taliban-controlled Khyber region seeking answers. Captivated by the romantic fortified villages of the Pashtun people, she finds that nothing is quite as it seems and no-one is exactly who they purport to be. Sensing a complex conspiracy, she soon finds herself taken captive in the lawless gunsmiths' town of Dara Adam Khel.

Meanwhile, MI5's Counter-espionage officers come under attack from an invisible force as they track the secret activities of Russia's unofficial mercenaries - all the way from the north west of England to the north west of Pakistan.

This is book #5 in the Thames House Files series of espionage thrillers and is Amazon's No 1 best seller in Political Thrillers & Suspense.

Published by SpellBound Books. Available in Kindle and paperback.

ISBN: 9781838425272

ASIN: B0CJR6HNR4

*JUDGED 'HIGHLY COMMENDED' AT THE TRUE CRIME AWARDS 2024.*

In the 1920s, America's first recorded serial sex killer was believed to have strangled 22 victims all across the continent, from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast, until his arrest in Canada. The author's research, however, suggests he attacked at least twice that number. Whilst much has been written about the necrophile whom the press dubbed 'the dark strangler' and 'the gorilla killer', his tragic victims, mis-named in many accounts, have been largely ignored.

Those victims - one being the author's own ancestor - and those women and girls who actually survived his attacks, are presented here as individuals, along with an account of the odd life and ironically appropriate death of Earle Leonard Nelson.

Available in paperback from Amazon and book stores

Misbourne Press ISBN: 9798857732809

All royalties are donated to the charity Women's Aid.

THE THAMES HOUSE FILES - A best-selling series of Espionage thrillers - all of which made Amazon's Top 5 list.

THE HUNT FOR WOTAK

The Cold War has never been colder than in 2020’s Brexit-era Britain. The United Kingdom faces the prospect of becoming dis-united and there is sporadic violent civil unrest. A series of cyber-attacks of growing severity affects all areas of daily life. Meanwhile, a hostile, foreign state mounts regular incursions into Britain’s airspace and territorial waters.

In the midst of the mounting chaos, a sinister entity calling himself WOTAK claims responsibility for much of this ‘hybrid warfare’ and seeks to hold the nation to ransom. A series of brutal murders, including that of the Foreign Secretary, raises the pressure on The Joint Intelligence Committee to establish who or what is WOTAK.

With a little help from his friends, the Security Service’s Harry Edwards seeks to track down and neutralise WOTAK. However, he has no idea of the enormous personal cost this complicated operation will involve.

WHEN THE GREY WOLF SINGS

When an elderly Russian is burned to death in his car in north London, his 72-year-old friend, former KGB man Nikolai Volkov, determines to avenge his death. In the days that follow, the British Prime Minister goes missing; a wealthy Russian crime boss is mysteriously poisoned in Britain’s most secure prison, and the body of a youth is found at one of the UK’s most secret Ministry of Defence bases.

Meanwhile, a drone attack is mounted on MI6’s London HQ; a popular politician’s damaging personal secret is leaked, and a young child is kidnapped. All this occurs against the background of the continuing ‘cyber-war’ waged on the west by Russia, and a global viral pandemic, both of which threaten the health, the economy and the security of the nation.

A LONG ROAD TO REVENGE

A decades-old Russian bio-terror weapon is being deployed on the streets of London. People with no apparent connection are dying horribly, and there is no clear motive. MI5’s Harry Edwards and Counter Terrorism Command’s Detective Inspector Kit McGlone identify potential suspects – only to see them assassinated too. What deadly secret did the murder victims share, and who is killing the killers?

SHEARWATER POINT

Boston lawyer Dom Caffrey arrives in Northern Ireland to seek his biological parents, but soon finds himself arrested on suspicion of murder.

MI5 intelligence analyst Carole Murray also comes to the province to bury her murdered uncle. Events lead them to Shearwater Point, a stunning spot on the County Down coast.

However, the breath-taking beauty of the location hides a dark history of cruelty, human exploitation and murder. Meanwhile, nearby, a sinister, ultra-right group is plotting a major terror attack.

**Amazon Number 1 best seller in its genre. Winner of the Chill With A Book Readers' Premier Book Award, and voted their Book of the Month in January 2023. **

Denise Beddows' true crime books are also available from Amazon.

ODD MAN OUT
A Motiveless Murder?

In 1948, the Lancashire mill town of Rawtenstall was rocked by its first ever murder. The victim, described by her own family as 'abnormal', was found brutally beaten to death in her own home. Just five days later, a suspect, also deemed 'abnormal', was arrested.
This is the true and tragic story of transgendered bus conductress Margaret 'Bill' Allen, who barely knew the victim but who, despite desperate campaigning by her loving friend Annie, was hanged for a seemingly motiveless murder.
Did 'Bill' do it? If so, why? Seventy years on, the author uncovers evidence which was suppressed at the time, and asks whether society's treatment of 'Bill' would be very much different today.

THE FORGOTTEN FORTY-FOUR
Victims and Survivors of America's First Serial Sex Killer

In the 1920s, America's first recorded serial sex killer was believed to have strangled 22 victims all across the continent, from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast, until his arrest in Canada. The author's research, however, suggests he attacked at least TWICE that number.
Whilst much has been written about this psychopathic necrophile whom the press dubbed 'The Dark Strangler' and 'The Gorilla Killer', his tragic victims, mis-named in many accounts, have been largely ignored.
His victims, one being the author's own ancestor, and those women and girls who survived his attacks, are presented here as individuals, along with an account of the odd life and ironically appropriate death of Earle Leonard Nelson.

THE WRONGED MAN
A Miscarriage of Justice

On a hot July afternoon in 1933, Frances Levin, 61, was brutally beaten to death in her own home in Manchester's then affluent Cheetham Hill district. Following the biggest manhunt Manchester's CID had ever undertaken, William Burtoft, a homeless meths addict, was arrested for her murder in what was said to have been a robbery gone wrong.
In 2018, a BBC TV programme revisited the case and concluded the confession was coerced and the verdict, which saw Burtoft convicted and hanged, was unsound.
But if Burtoft did not kill Mrs Levin, then who did?
The author uncovers police corruption, malpractice and suppression of crucial evidence, and reveals a more likely motive and an obvious suspect who was never even questioned. This was clearly a tragic miscarriage of justice.

Denise Beddows