Things are changing at Ashfordly Section police station. The sergeant is retiring and Police Constable Nick Rhea finds himself rising through the ranks, only to realise just how little he really knows about the locals of Aidensfield. Rhea is determined to meet the locals but a rogue goat causing traffic disturbances, a spate of burglaries, and a skeleton uncovered during a renovation mean his house calls will have to wait. Nicholas Rhea's delightful Constable tales paint an endearing and hilarious picture of police work in a rural district and was the inspiration for the Heartbeat TV series.

Author Biography

Nicholas Rhea was born in Glaisdale, a Yorkshire Moors Village, in 1936. The oldest of three sons born to an insurance agent and a teacher, he won a scholarship to Whitby Grammar School but left at 16 to become a police cadet. In 1956, he joined the North Yorkshire force in Whitby. He began to write seriously in the late 1950s after years of casual interest, having his first short story published in the Police Review. Continuing to rise through the ranks at the region's Police Headquarters in Northallerton, he published his first novel, Carnaby and the Hijackers, in 1976. Rhea is primarily known for his Constable series, inspired by his many years of police service. He retired in 1982 to concentrate on his writing, encouraged by an interest in his Constable books from Yorkshire Television. This was to become the highly popular Heartbeat series, which ran for 18 seasons and over 350 episodes. Rhea had four children and eight grandchildren, and lived with his wife in a quiet North Yorkshire village. He died in 2017.