Wigan author hits the charts with debut novel

A Wigan author has hit the charts with his debut novel.

Who Killed Miss Finch? by Peter Boon, who is from Bryn, has just been released and has already made number one best seller in several Amazon Book categories.

The novel is the first in the series of the Edward Crisp Mysteries, featuring a socially awkward school librarian whose main interest is reading whodunnits.

When the hated headteacher of his school is found dead, he suddenly finds himself with a real life murder mystery to solve – with his friends and colleagues as suspects, but he must overcome his anxieties to solve the case.

Although the story is set near Eastbourne, East Sussex, where Peter now lives, the main character and his family are from Wigan before moving – much like Peter himself.

Born in Billinge, Peter went to St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic High School and St John Rigby College, and also did his English Literature degree locally, at Bolton University. His mum and dad Susan and Granville Boon both still live in Bryn, where Peter was brought up.

Peter, 41, who is also an English Teacher, said, “I’ve lived in Eastbourne for nearly nine years but I’m still a northerner at heart.

“The story is told by Edward Crisp, the first person narrator, and I soon realised I would have to make him from Wigan like me as there were too many northern expressions in the way I write!

“This is the first in a series, so I’ll definitely have Edward come and visit his northern home in a future mystery.”

Peter said he also has a very famous influence for his detective series.

He said: “I’m an Agatha Christie superfan.

“ I wanted to write mysteries in the vein of her classic Golden Age mysteries where the emphasis is on the puzzle and the fun along the way, rather than violence or police procedures.

“My Mum, who still lives in Bryn with my Dad, got me into Agatha Christie when I was a teenager - taking me to Ashton Library every week to borrow them, so it’s fitting she was the first person after my editor to read the novel.”

His second novel ‘The Mystery of Jackson King’ will be published later this year.

‘Who Killed Miss Finch?’ is available in paperback and ebook from Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08B46T5YS.