Grantham author Michael Dane releases The Rutland Identity - the second book in his Frank McBride series

An affluent rural region once more is the unlikely setting for espionage and murder most foul in the latest book of a fast-moving series.

The Rutland Identity is the second book by Grantham author Michael Dane in the Frank McBride crime thriller series, set in England’s smallest county.

Michael, a retired customs and excise investigator, combined personal experience with his newfound spare time to launch the series with The Rutland Connection last November.

From there, the ideas have snowballed, with a third book - The Rutland Volunteer - set for release in September. He is now halfway through a fourth book, while the seeds of a fifth have already started germinating.

“The idea came to me when I was writing the final chapter of the first one and everything flowed from that very easily,” he said.

“I realised then that I’d written two books with the same characters and I’d started a series.”

The latest book is set in 1998 during the football World Cup and again follows retired Customs and Excise investigator Frank McBride and former head of military intelligence Brigadier Bernard Taylor.

They decide to investigate when the village pub’s landlord in the sleepy, and fictional, Rutland village of Leighton Parva is found dead at the bottom of his cellar steps and stumble upon a web of intrigue.

Frank and Bernard are joined by new characters, but it’s the two main players who pique the interest of the author.

“It’s a cliche but I kind of fell in love with my characters,” he said.

“One is a totally amoral sociopathic, devious, manipulative, dishonest man who does all these things purely for his amusement, so he’s awful and I’m really fond of him.

“Then the other is a grumpy, miserable, prejudiced Glaswegian communist and I love him even more!

“Each of them has reasons to loathe the other, but for some reason they don’t - it’s like the odd couple who investigate murder. It’s terrific to write.”

Leighton Parva is based on a real village in Rutland, but for the time being, Michael is remaining tight-lipped over its true identity.

“I may well at some point say ‘Leighton Parva is in fact this village’ and coachloads will arrive by their thousands and gather by the war memorial,” he joked.

“But not just yet. If you read the whole series, get a map, draw lines on it and measure distances you could probably work out where it is.

“If I ever have a fan that dedicated I know I’ll have hit the big time!”

Michael continues to relish his post-retirement career as a writer and feels there is plenty of scope for more material from Rutland’s fictionalised dark underbelly.

“I’ve done drug smuggling, murder, some more drug smuggling, a VAT fraud, some cigarette smuggling, some gold smuggling, another couple of murders,” he said.

“Until I run out of crime in Rutland I’ll keep going.”

The Rutland Identity comes out on April 28 through publishers, The Book Guild, and is already available as a paperback through Amazon.