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Welcome to the Judith Cutler Web Site!
As you can see there are two series to read. Ten books have been published so far in the series featuring amateur sleuth, Sophie Rivers and six novels starring Detective Sergeant Kate Power are available. All the novels are set in the present day, in Birmingham or nearby, apart from Hidden Power, which visits Devon. I hope you'll enjoy them.
Although they're both fictional characters, both Sophie and Kate share parts of their lives with me. Like Sophie, I was born in the Black Country, just outside Birmingham, later moving to the Birmingham suburb of Harborne, which is where Sophie still lives.
I started writing while I was still at the then Oldbury Grammar School, actually winning the Critical Quarterly Short Story prize with the second story I wrote. After that - nothing. I read English at university and got thoroughly blocked until I was in my thirties. Then an attack of chickenpox caught from my son (thanks, Jon!) laid me low. One way of dealing with the itch was to hold a pencil in one hand, a block of paper in the other - and to start writing my first novel. Not that this is one you'll ever see: it's staying firmly where it belongs, at the back of a dark cupboard. (A much better version appeared as Coming Alive, published by Severn House.)
Alas, what I didn't know then, but now try as a creative writing tutor to tell my students, is that writing is a skill. Yes, of course you need inspiration and creativity. You have to work hard acquiring skills to shape all your ideas. And though Dying Fall is officially my first novel, in fact, there are also a couple of others in the same cupboard. And we don't talk about them either.
In addition to writing rejected novels, I was also teaching full-time - like Sophie! - at an inner-city further education college and producing short stories. These soon started to be broadcast on BBC Radio Four or appear in magazines such as 'Bella'. Check out the Crime Writers' Association's anthology, 'Missing Persons' for my story about a pig, and Green for Danger, which recounts the perils of village life.
 And then - at long last! - came the magic moment when in May 1995, the first novel was published.
Eventually I left the college where I'd worked for nearly thirty years. I also left Harborne, the suburb of Birmingham where Sophie lives, to Kings Heath, another suburb. By some strange coincidence, Kate Power, fresh from the Metropolitan Police, moved there too. In fact for some five years we shared a house - originally a house from hell with garden to match. It took us both a long time to get it under control, though I have to stress that I never found under my office floor what she found under hers. Neither was there anything especially interesting under my shed - though I found a gas stove in it so old it now lives in a museum.
My characters and I also have certain interests in common. Unlike Sophie I can't sing. However, like her, I love classical music. For many years I was a trustee of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's Benevolent Fund and on the Committee of Birmingham Chamber Music Society. Sophie and I also share a passion for cooking, though I've never taken it up in the semi-professional way she has recently, and for cricket. Thanks to the kindness and encouragement of Warwickshire Cricket Club, the tenth of her adventures features some unpleasant activities which are simply "not cricket". We both support West Bromwich Albion Football Club, and are convinced that this will be the season when they are at last promoted (a brilliant forecast as West Brom won promotion to the Premier League in April 2002, returning in 2004!).
Kate seems to spend most of her life working, poor woman, and her social life is in a mess. She and I both enjoy a game of tennis, and now I've taken up badminton, I wouldn't be surprised if she does too. There's every sign that her love life will at last improve.
See the 2004 Power Shift for the next development in her relationship with Rod.
I have recently left the Midlands after living there all my life. But there's no sign of Sophie or Kate following me - not yet, at least. In Dying in Discord, published in May 2003, Sophie explored one of the Midlands' most important buildings - indeed, the Soho Foundry is likely to become a World Heritage Site, thanks to the efforts of archaeologist George Demidowicz who showed me round when I was researching the area. In Hidden Power, published in September 2003, Kate is away from Birmingham, chasing wrongdoers in Devon. She returned in 2004 to take up a promotion in Birmingham, this time in the Chinese Quarter.
Though they may be able to take me away from the Midlands, they'll never be able to take the Midlands away from me. Even the heroine of Scar Tissue (Allison and Busby, 2004) is an ex-Brummie living in Kent - though there, I hasten to say, the resemblance ends! Watch out too for the next Kentish heroine, Lina Townend, who finds more than she bargained for when she discovers her long-lost father.
The Novels
The Chief Superintendant Fran Harman series
Life Sentence
Cold Pursuit
Still Waters
The Josie Welford series
The Food Detective
The Chinese Takeout
The Tobias Campion series
The Keeper of Secrets
Shadow of the Past (Summer 2008)
Stand-alones
Scar Tissue
Drawing the Line
The Sophie Rivers series
Dying Fall
Dying to Write
Dying on Principle
Dying for Millions
Dying for Power
Dying to Score
Dying by Degrees
Dying by the Book
Dying in Discord
Dying to Deceive
The Kate Power series
Power on her Own
Staying Power
Power Games
Will Power
Hidden Power
Power Shift
Romances
Coming Alive
Head over Heels
See also: Short Story Anniversary
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