W. J. Burley published his first mystery novel, A Taste of Power, in 1966 at the age of fifty-one. With two professional careers already behind him, by 1974 Burley had become a full-time writer. Although he has experimented with various types of mystery novel, Burley is best known for the long-running police series featuring Detective Chief Superintendent Charles Wycliffe of the Criminal Investigation Department in the West Country of England. After two early novels featuring the amateur investigator Henry Pym, and some nonseries psychological mystery stories, from 1980 Burley concentrated on the successful Wycliffe series. He has since produced a Wycliffe novel nearly annually, making a total of twenty-two to date, with plans for more. "I will keep going as long as my health holds out," he told Geoff Tibballs, author of The Wycliffe File: The Story of the ITV Detective Series, in 1995. While Burley's Cornish detective series is located within...