Crime writer who drew on his experience as a Fleet Street journalist to colour his thrillers
The crime writer Robert Richardson, who has died aged 80, started out as the inventor of Gus (Augustus) Maltravers, an erudite playwright and classic amateur sleuth in the tradition of the English detective novel/story. The plots of his books, with and without Maltravers, included such features as rare Bibles, a lost Sherlock Holmes manuscript and the murder of a Fleet Street gossip columnist. Richardson drew on his experience as a national newspaper journalist – including at the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday and the Observer – to colour some of his mysteries.
His first novel, The Latimer Mercy (1985), published by Gollancz as one of its celebrated yellow-jacket crime series, won the John Creasey award from the Crime Writers’ Association.