Crime Novels by Stephen J Grant

Mortified - #1 in the Series The Melvin Peters Mysteries

When recently widowed undertaker Melvin Peters finds a man murdered in his own basement mortuary, he can’t help taking it personally: the victim is an old enemy. Worse, he was supposed to be dead already, the clue being he was in a mortuary fridge. 
DI Janice Evans, Melvin’s teenage crush turned investigating detective, seals off his workplace as a crime scene, threatening his already flat-lining business with bankruptcy. With two young children and a mortgage unimpressed by grief, Melvin sees only two choices: watch everything collapse or take matters into his own hands. He starts digging into the victim’s associates, including a bully-turned-businessman with political ambitions and a long-term employee nursing a grudge. But when Melvin makes a crucial breakthrough, his elation turns to despair after one disastrous mistake puts his family in the sights of someone prepared to make inconvenient people disappear for good.
Darkly comic, character-driven British crime for readers who like their mysteries funny in places, dangerous in others, and never quite cosy. 

If anyone would like an advance copy for review purposes, please contact me via info@stevegrantauthor.com.

Petrified - #2 in the Series The Melvin Peters Mysteries

The perfect high. What could go wrong?

There’s a new class of substance coming onto the streets that offers the possibility of the ultimate high with none of the usual risks.
Melvin Peters arranges to meet his friend Angus Tuloch after work. That Angus doesn’t show seems like no big deal. But when Angus fails to come home or show up for work the next day, alarm bells sound. Then Angus shows up dead in Mel’s back yard. What’s worse - he appears to have been embalmed alive and the evidence points at Mel. But then a huge level of the novel drug is detected in Angus’s blood, and Mel is drawn into a shady world of drugs and criminality that he will struggle to escape from.

Petrified will be published in 2027.