Phil Lecomber
Author of Historical Crime & Noir Fiction
Dark, atmospheric crime novels set in the underworld of London's past
Represented by Watson Little literary agency
Latest Release
Midnight Streets
Titan Books
Piccadilly Noir Series - Book I
George Harley is a cockney private detective in late 1920s London. While investigating a series of grisly murders he uncovers a trail of hidden clues, linking the crimes to an infamous figure from the past. Convinced that the police have the wrong man, Harley must use all his skills negotiating the dark underbelly of the city to track down the real killer. The investigation leads to a clash with an occult mastermind, an encounter which will have dire consequences for the rest of his life. This dark noir crime thriller is the first instalment in the Piccadilly Noir series.
“If you love Jake Arnott and Dominic Nolan, you will absolutely devour this!" - RAVEN CRIME READS ​
“A truly promising debut – highly recommended.” - CRIME TIME UK
​“Heavy on atmosphere, packed with period detail” - CRIME FICTION LOVER
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PICCADILLY NOIR is a crime fiction series set in the late 1920s, featuring the private detective, George Harley. Although the milieu is that of the Golden Age of Crime Fiction, Harley’s world is a far cry from an Agatha Christie country house. Our working-class hero does his ‘sherlocking’ in the frowzy alleyways and sleazy nightclubs of London’s Soho—the city’s underbelly, peopled with lowlife ponces, jaded streetwalkers and East End mobsters.
"A walk on the wild side of 1920s London. Dark, atmospheric and utterly compelling." — Jake Arnott, bestselling author of
The Long Firm and The Fatal Tree
Unlike the American noir of Chandler and Hammett, PICCADILLY NOIR is a strictly British affair. It’s a world of grubby bedsits, all-night cafés, and Gold Flake cigarettes, where the villains are more likely to wield cutthroat razors than Tommy guns, and the wise-cracking Lauren Bacalls have been replaced by louche bohemians with belladonna eyes and ladders in their stockings.
"Lecomber’s jaw-dropping debut is exactly what I want from a historical hardboiled novel." — Duane Swierczynski, New York Times bestselling author of Lion & Lamb, California Bear and Secret Dead Men
PICCADILLY NOIR is as black as pitch, with a gruesome streak running through it—like a string of gristle in a dubious steak. Whether it’s dismembered corpses, occult sacrifices, or iniquitous conspiracies, Harley constantly finds himself embroiled in the macabre mysteries of a city whose sins are as dark as stout porter beer and where Truth is as murky as the mustard-coloured smog.
"If Patrick Hamilton and Dashiell Hammett got hammered in Soho, this is the novel they’d have come up with.
A cracking debut." — Martyn Waites, author of the Joe Donovan crime series
About Phil Lecomber
PHIL LECOMBER is the historical crime fiction author of the PICCADILLY NOIR series, an exciting new addition to the noir detective genre.​
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After decades working in London in various occupations—from construction worker, to expert in the security of the world’s most valuable works of art—Phil Lecomber now brings the city’s darker history vividly to life…