A Bullet In The Temple
Published on 11. November 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
296 pages
978-1-9164010-8-2 (ISBN)
Description
It's 1972 and as newly promoted railway Detective Chief Inspector Jane Benson surveys her office in the gothic gloom of Bristol Temple Meads station, she could be stuck in medieval times.
A female pioneer in a man's world, DCI Benson is plagued by the past - the unsolved murder of her former boss, senselessly gunned down while walking his dog. As her beloved mentor, she owes it to his memory to bring the murderer to justice.
Yet she must focus on the present and prove she's as good - if not better - than her male colleagues while facing the challenges of policing a railway tainted by a flood of deadly illegal drugs, where one wrong move means A Bullet In The Temple.
Stephen Done brings to life another rich vein of characters, as in his celebrated DCI Vignoles railway detective thrillers. Meet Sandy Law, the dark mirror image of the upright Benson; a sexy Pullman stewardess who uses her amateur conjuring skills to fleece salivating businessmen to fund a lush lifestyle.
Benson and her Detective Department must grapple with the new and less respectful order, and just as the railways fight for survival in the motorway age, so DCI Benson must ensure her rising star isn't extinguished by envy and sexism.
A female pioneer in a man's world, DCI Benson is plagued by the past - the unsolved murder of her former boss, senselessly gunned down while walking his dog. As her beloved mentor, she owes it to his memory to bring the murderer to justice.
Yet she must focus on the present and prove she's as good - if not better - than her male colleagues while facing the challenges of policing a railway tainted by a flood of deadly illegal drugs, where one wrong move means A Bullet In The Temple.
Stephen Done brings to life another rich vein of characters, as in his celebrated DCI Vignoles railway detective thrillers. Meet Sandy Law, the dark mirror image of the upright Benson; a sexy Pullman stewardess who uses her amateur conjuring skills to fleece salivating businessmen to fund a lush lifestyle.
Benson and her Detective Department must grapple with the new and less respectful order, and just as the railways fight for survival in the motorway age, so DCI Benson must ensure her rising star isn't extinguished by envy and sexism.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-9164010-8-2 (9781916401082)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Stephen Done
3rd August 1968. It was my eighth birthday. Dark thunder clouds gathered behind our house on the outskirts of Scarborough, when, whilst dressed in my new Batman cape with friend Sean wearing a bright yellow Robin cape, I declared confidently to my mother 'I wanted to become the driver of a steam engine,' only to be told that the very last steam engines were departing the next day.
Perhaps that is why I took up writing about steam trains instead...
In 2005 I had the germ of an idea that became 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes', the first Inspector Vignoles Mystery. It was an immediate hit with the reading public and within 3 weeks of publication was adapted into a stage musical by Chenderit School, Middleton Cheney with some remarkable 1940's style music composed for the adaptation.
Twelve more books have followed to date, taking the railway detective and his team up and down the now long closed Great Central Railway (and others) as the years roll by and now, with A Bullet In The Temple we see one of the WPCs become the first female DCI, as she takes up her new role in Bristol Temple Meads in 1972...
I also paint landscapes in oil and watercolour, go bird watching, love gardening and walking and also railway modelling (a layout themed around Inspector Vignoles is under construction) and enjoy a real ale and glass of red wine.
3rd August 1968. It was my eighth birthday. Dark thunder clouds gathered behind our house on the outskirts of Scarborough, when, whilst dressed in my new Batman cape with friend Sean wearing a bright yellow Robin cape, I declared confidently to my mother 'I wanted to become the driver of a steam engine,' only to be told that the very last steam engines were departing the next day.
Perhaps that is why I took up writing about steam trains instead...
In 2005 I had the germ of an idea that became 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes', the first Inspector Vignoles Mystery. It was an immediate hit with the reading public and within 3 weeks of publication was adapted into a stage musical by Chenderit School, Middleton Cheney with some remarkable 1940's style music composed for the adaptation.
Twelve more books have followed to date, taking the railway detective and his team up and down the now long closed Great Central Railway (and others) as the years roll by and now, with A Bullet In The Temple we see one of the WPCs become the first female DCI, as she takes up her new role in Bristol Temple Meads in 1972...
I also paint landscapes in oil and watercolour, go bird watching, love gardening and walking and also railway modelling (a layout themed around Inspector Vignoles is under construction) and enjoy a real ale and glass of red wine.