Hemel author turns New Year’s resolution into debut crime novel

A Hemel Hempstead man who promised himself he would stop saying “one day” has published his first crime novel, and it has already reached one of Amazon’s Hot New Releases charts.

Paul Armstrong, a marketing consultant born and raised in Hemel Hempstead, published The Blackthorn Pact under the name P. J. Armstrong on 14 October. It is available on Kindle and in paperback.

Mr Armstrong left Hemel after graduating, living in the West Country before his work took him to Colorado and Cork. He moved back to the town about ten years ago.

The book began as a New Year’s resolution in January 2025: to finally write the novel he had talked about for years. Twenty-five drafts later, it is out, and within days it had climbed onto Amazon UK’s Hot New Releases chart for Private Investigator Mysteries.

The story is set in Oxford and the Oxfordshire countryside. It follows Arthur Graves, a disgraced detective turned crime writer, who is drawn into the death of a woman found at the foot of a viaduct. The police have written it off as an accident. Graves is not so sure, and the more he looks, the closer he gets to a powerful local family with a secret to protect.

“I’d said ‘one day’ for so long that I decided the only way to stop was to put it in writing,” said Mr Armstrong. “I never expected to see it on a list next to authors I’ve been reading for years.”

The book is for readers of Ian Rankin and Val McDermid. It is the first in the Arthur Graves Mysteries series, and Mr Armstrong has already started on the sequel, The Cowley Butcher, which he plans to publish in a few months.

The Blackthorn Pact is available on Amazon in paperback (£9.99) and on Kindle (£2.99, or free with Kindle Unlimited).