North Yorkshire writer Jean Harrod reveals how the adventures of her diplomatic career inspire her crime novels. MAXINE GORDON reports

WHEN Indonesian terrorists seized four Cambridge University students as hostages in West Papua, Jean Harrod spent months trying to negotiate their release and liaising with local special forces in a bid to free them.

The student scientists were on a field trip in this far-flung corner of the Indonesian archipelago and Jean was the British Consul stationed in Jakarta with responsibility for British and Commonwealth citizens.

Other hostages had been taken at the same time, by local terrorist organisation OPM, explains Jean, and sadly, some of them were killed as special forces moved in. The Cambridge four were all found alive.

The dramatic story is just one of many in a diplomatic career stretching almost 40 years that took Jean all over the world, with postings to East Berlin in the Seventies, China in the Eighties and Indonesia and Australia in the Nineties.

During her rise through the Foreign Office, Jean met many VIPS, from Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and George Bush to members of the Royal Family.

She was a pioneer - the first woman to marry in service and not give up her job. She joined the Foreign Office in 1973 aged 19 and met her husband Jeff months later while working in Geneva.

When they married, she was sent two letters requesting her resignation. She ignored them.

She managed to stay under the radar for a couple of years - with the help of a supportive boss - but was "saved" by the Sex Discrimination Act, which came into effect in 1975, making it illegal to discriminate against anyone of grounds of gender or marital status.

"Hallelujah!" cheers Jean today. "I was saved by the Sex Discrimination Act and went on to have a great career."

She and Jeff were often sent to postings together, saving the tax payers thousands over the years in rent and bills, points out Jean. The couple now live in Hutton-le-Hole.

Working in foreign consulates and embassies, Jean would often be the first port of call should a Briton come to harm or end up in trouble. On more than one occasion, she sat with someone on their deathbed, knowing a relative or loved one would not arrive in time to offer solace.

She saw many shocking scenes in her time, but says the worst was while working in the Caribbean a decade ago when she was head of the governor’s office on the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British overseas territory. She witnessed at first hand the drowning of boatloads of migrants fleeing Haiti, and was responsible for helping the Haitians identify the victims and repatriate their remains.

Jean's voice audibly cracks as she recalls that time. "They would come in sloops, rickety wooden boats, with women and children packed below in the bowels and the men on deck. One night a sloop went down in really rough water out at sea. We only had two patrol boats and could only rescue a handful of people. Sixty people drowned, including almost all the women and children - only one young woman survived.

"I had a Haitian delegation come over to identify the bodies. I will never forget the sights in that morgue. Even now I find it hard to talk about it. The bodies came out of shark-infested seas. Heads had been bitten off, legs had been bitten off. It leaves a lasting impression and haunts me still."

Jean was made an MBE in 1994 and took early retirement six years ago. Settled in North Yorkshire, she started writing, following the ethos: "write what you know".

She penned a crime series featuring a female diplomat, Jess Turner, and a male cop, DI Tom Sangster. Her debut novel, Deadly Diplomacy, is set in Australia, while the second, Deadly Deceit - out next month - is set in the Turks and Caicos Islands, with the Haitian migrant crisis forming the backbone of the story.

The theme is a topical one given the current migrant situation in Europe. In the Caribbean, authorities worked quickly to repatriate economic migrants - they were sent back to Haiti, acting as a disincentive for others to follow suit and risk their lives in treacherous sea crossings. Jean believes the EU needs to do the same and is only now starting to make deterrent moves by setting up processing centres in Greece. Granted, she admits, it is complicated, but the EU needs to have agreements with other nations making it easier to return economic migrants to their homelands.

"The fact that Europe just opened up its borders caused more confusion and encouraged other people to come," she says.

As for refugees, she supports the British Government's stance of giving asylum to people in camps bordering war zones.

Her focus is now on finishing the third novel in the series, Deadly Secret, set in both China and London, but in different time periods. Again, it draws from her days in the diplomatic service, when she and Jeff were stationed in China.

"It was the 1980s and China was still fiercely communist; it was only about four years since the death of Mao. We had worked for three yeas in the British embassy in Peking, then opened up the new consulate in Shanghai. It was a very interesting time, before the opening up of China, which was then still a very closed society."

The plot moves between being a diplomat in China at that time and working in the Foreign Office in London in the present day.

If her first two novels are anything to go by, there will be plenty of adventures along the way.

l Deadly Deceit will be available in high street bookshops from June 16. It is available to pre-order now on Amazon (in paperback and Kindle editions)

l Deadly Deceit will be launched on Thursday, June 23, at 7pm, Waterstones, Coney Street, York. Jean will also be giving a talk at York Explore Library on Thursday, July 7, at 6.30pm.