Totley author publishes chilling new crime novel inspired by Britain’s dark wartime secrets

The mysterious disappearance of a Yorkshire priest, the wartime history of Doncaster Racecourse, and disturbing secrets from Britain’s Second World War interrogation centres have inspired Surviving Angel, a chilling new historical crime novel by Sheffield author David James Buckley. The Totley-based writer, who spent decades teaching English in the city’s schools and colleges, has published his second novel, following a Yorkshire detective whose investigation into a double murder uncovers a nationwide mystery involving wartime secrets and a growing threat to his own family.

A disturbing chapter of Britain’s wartime history lies at the heart of Surviving Angel, the second historical crime novel from Sheffield-based David James Buckley, who has combined real historical events with memories of post-war Yorkshire to create a murder mystery exploring official secrecy, family loyalties and the consequences of events that powerful people would rather forget.

One of the novel’s principal inspirations is the London Cage, a British military intelligence interrogation centre in Kensington Palace Gardens where enemy prisoners were questioned during the Second World War. Buckley became fascinated by allegations of brutal treatment at the centre and began imagining how a seemingly straightforward police investigation in 1950s Yorkshire might uncover wartime events that those involved had spent years trying to conceal.

The novel also draws inspiration from a lesser-known chapter of South Yorkshire’s wartime history. During the Second World War, Doncaster Racecourse was used as a prisoner-of-war camp, with the site on Town Moor recorded as Racecourse Camp Doncaster. Buckley, who has visited the racecourse to watch horse racing, drew on the site’s history when creating a fictional Doncaster Cage, linking a familiar South Yorkshire landmark to the wider wartime mysteries explored in the novel.

Other historical incidents helped shape the story, including the mysterious disappearance of Polish Catholic priest Father Henry Borynski in Bradford in 1953 and the unsolved murder of farmworker Charles Walton in Warwickshire in 1945. Buckley has woven these separate strands of history into a fictional investigation that reaches far beyond Yorkshire, exploring how secrets from the war could continue to affect people’s lives more than a decade after the fighting had ended.

Set in 1958, Surviving Angel follows Acting Chief Inspector Jim Bible as he investigates the murder of a husband and wife found dead in their cottage, with their 11-year-old son initially missing. As further deaths occur and connections emerge between apparently unrelated incidents, Bible and his colleague Detective Sergeant Bill Ward find themselves drawn into a nationwide mystery involving wartime secrets and official secrecy, while the growing danger begins to threaten Bible’s own family.

The novel also captures a period when Britain was beginning to change, with the newly formed Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the continuing requirement for young men to undertake National Service, and growing tensions between generations all reflected in Bible’s home life. His wife Shirley’s political interests and his teenage son Ricky’s concerns about National Service increasingly challenge the views of a detective who believes strongly in duty and responsibility, adding a personal dimension to the wider investigation.

Born in Bradford in 1949, Buckley has drawn on his memories of growing up in post-war Yorkshire to bring the novel’s 1950s setting to life. The fictional city in which much of the story takes place is inspired by Bradford, alongside his wider knowledge of Yorkshire and its history.

The author’s connection to Sheffield stretches back nearly five decades, having moved to the city in 1979 and made his home in areas including Banner Cross, Ecclesall and Totley, where he now lives. He spent much of his professional life teaching English in Sheffield, beginning at Tapton School in 1979, becoming Head of English in 1987 and continuing to teach there until 1995.

His teaching career also included King Ecgbert School and Waltheof School, while he also lectured in English at The Sheffield College’s Norton and Peaks campuses. Alongside his work in education, Buckley established himself as a freelance journalist and reviewer, contributing to publications including The Observer, Times Educational Supplement, The Independent and The Guardian, and had three radio plays produced by the BBC, including two for Radio 4.

Buckley’s journey into novel-writing began after he retired from teaching, when he enrolled on a part-time MA in Writing at Sheffield Hallam University in 2009, aged 60. Having spent decades working to a timetable, he wanted to give his retirement a new sense of purpose while pursuing an ambition he had held for years, later graduating with distinction in 2014, aged 65. His first novel, Stone and Water, introduced Jim Bible in a story set in 1956, while the publication of Surviving Angel marks another milestone in a writing career that began in earnest later in life.

The new novel was developed over several years, with Buckley undertaking extensive historical research and repeatedly revising its complex plot before reaching a completed manuscript labelled Draft 25. For the Sheffield author, the publication of a second book represents the continuation of a longstanding creative ambition, bringing together his interest in history, his experience of writing for radio and newspapers, and his fascination with the moral dilemmas faced by ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events.

David James Buckley said, “I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that places we think we know can have histories that are almost completely forgotten. Doncaster Racecourse is a good example. I’ve enjoyed going there for the racing, but discovering its wartime role made me think about how much can happen in a familiar place without later generations knowing very much about it. That sense of history lying just beneath the surface is something I wanted to capture in the novel.

“What interested me about setting the story in 1958 was that the war had ended, but its consequences were still part of everyday life. People were beginning to look towards a different future, yet there were experiences from the war that hadn’t necessarily been spoken about or properly understood. I wanted to explore what might happen when a detective who believes strongly in doing the right thing finds himself confronting a past that others would prefer to leave undisturbed.

“Jim Bible isn’t a glamorous detective who ignores the rules and drinks his way through every investigation. He’s a fairly conventional man trying to do his job conscientiously, and I think that makes the situations he encounters all the more interesting. His family matters enormously to him, but he doesn’t always understand the changing attitudes of his wife and son, and those tensions become increasingly important as the investigation develops.

“I’ve lived in Sheffield since 1979, and after spending so many years teaching English here, I wanted to make sure retirement didn’t mean giving up the structure and purpose that work had provided. Going to Sheffield Hallam at 60 was a chance to take writing seriously and finally attempt something I’d thought about for a long time. I didn’t want to die saying, ‘I could have written a novel’, and having now published a second one makes me particularly glad I decided to go for it.”

Surviving Angel is available now in paperback and on Kindle, for more information please visit www.davidjamesbuckley.com or www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0H68LGXP4