Patrick Easter is the author of four previous novels. The books follow the exploits of Tom Pascoe, a former naval officer who, at the end of the 18th Century joins the newly formed Thames Police Institution in the fight against serious crime. His latest book, Virginia Street, is set in 1800 in east London and creates a new hero, a Jew with a secret that threatens his future. The character did, in fact, exist and while the plot is fictional, the underlying story is true. The author combines his love of 18th/19th century history with experience gained as a London police officer on the Thames and elsewhere to bring to life the fast moving events within his novels. On leaving the Met in 1994, he worked for a number of years as a journalist before publishing his first book, The Watermen' in 2010. He is married and lives in East Sussex.