STEPHEN LEWIS reports on the Harrogate author who is hoping crime will pay.

CRIME doesn't pay, they say. Well, Harrogate author Angela Dracup is hoping they are wrong.

After a literary career which has taken in romantic fiction, award-winning teen novels and a historical blockbuster about Mozart's last years in Vienna, the mother-of-one found herself overcome by an inexplicable urge to write a crime novel featuring a cold-blooded murder.

"I had a picture in my mind of a teenage girl lying dead in a quarry on Haworth moors, an area I know well," Angela says. "I felt I had to write the story in order to find out what had happened to the girl and how her killer would be brought to justice."

The result is Where Darkness Begins, Angela's first out-and-out crime thriller brought out as part of publisher Robert Hale's new crime series.

A teenage girl's fully-clothed body is found lying in the old Arkwright quarry near Haworth. A police investigation swings into operation and the forensic evidence points overwhelmingly to the senile old farmer who found her.

But, despite being hampered by a burned-out sergeant and a superintendent desperate to get the case sewn up, Detective Chief Inspector Ed Swift is not satisfied. He begins a race against time to find the real killer - fighting his way through a tangle of lies and deceit to uncover an act of evil which has destroyed the life of more than one young person. And then he must find the proof.

As the novel grew, Angela found herself more and more drawn into the story of the dead girl's teenage friends. She understands the minds of teenagers more than most, having worked as an educational psychologist.

She says she "found creating fiction a way of relaxing after days spent assessing the problems of damaged and needy children".

What she wasn't very good on, however, was the way the police worked. She soon realised she needed to bring herself up to speed on police procedures and interviewing techniques - so turned to a real-life former detective chief inspector with North Yorkshire Police for help. "After that the story just poured out," Angela says. "It was accepted almost by return of post on submission."

A suspense/thriller element had been creeping into some of her novels and her editors had been encouraging about this departure. And it's always good for an author to be able to turn their hand to more than one genre.

"It is a tough world out there in fiction publishing. That's why it's a very good idea to have more than one string to your author's bow. For example, if you don't sell well with family sagas, you might hit the big-time with fantasy or maybe children's books," she says. "Hopefully, in my case, crime will pay."

Where Darkness Begins by Angela Dracup is published in hardback by Robert Hale, price £16.99.

Updated: 08:30 Wednesday, November 03, 2004