Who is JM Alvey? Well, when I wanted to try my hand at writing a historical mystery series set in Classical Greece, Orion, the publisher who initially bought the first two books, decided I would have to use a pseudonym, to make a clear distinction between these stories and my SF&F writing. There are certainly arguments to be made in favour of this approach. We decided on a gender neutral name, and I asked photographer Lou Abercrombie to come up with a similarly neutral photograph. Writing JM Alvey’s bio was an interesting challenge. First and foremost, I wasn’t going to say anything which wasn’t actually true, as that’s asking for trouble in these social media days. Here’s what we came up with…

“J M Alvey studied Classics at Oxford in the 1980s. As an undergraduate, notable achievements in startling tutors included citing the comedic principles of Benny Hill in a paper on Aristophanes, and using military war-gaming rules to analyse and explain apparent contradictions in historic accounts of the Battle of Thermopylae.

Crime fiction has always been relaxation reading and that love of mysteries and thrillers continued through a subsequent, varied career, alongside an abiding fascination with history and the ancient world.

These interests have now come together in the first adventure of Philocles Hestaiou, comic playwright and pen for hire in classical Athens. The last thing he needs is a corpse on his doorstep days before his new play is performed in the city’s most prestigious drama competition, at the Dionysia festival.”

That first story, Shadows of Athens, was published in March 2019 and was very well received and reviewed, including by a few readers who assumed the writer must be a man which was both amusing and illuminating. Unfortunately, for internal reasons beyond my control, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the books themselves, Orion Books decided they had no further interest in the series six weeks before Scorpions in Corinth was published in September 2019. To say that was a crushing disappointment … doesn’t begin to cover it.

All rights were reverted, and new ebook editions by Canelo were published in September 2020, followed by a new title, Justice for Athena in October 2020. However 2020 really wasn’t a good year for launching a new series, and 2021 wasn’t much better… At the moment, these three titles are only available in ebook and audiobook. As and when that changes, I will let everyone know.

Philocles made a further appearance in 2022, in Silver for Silence, a 12,000 word short story I wrote for BOTH Press, as one of their dyslexia-friendly quick reads. That’s available in paperback.

You can find out more about the books with a click here.

Or go straight to Amazon for each title.
Shadows of Athens
Scorpions in Corinth
Justice for Athena

Silver for Silence – direct from Books on the Hill
Silver for Silence – Amazon

Writing novels set in the 5th century BCE offered me some different challenges as an author. You can find links to my thoughts on these on this page.

Will there be more books in this series? I have learned to never say never in this business, but that’s a very remote possibility at present. Should that change, I’ll be making sure that everyone knows.