Author of

Inspector Armstrong,

Sherlock Holmes,

Non-Fiction & Biography

Latest News

My new Sherlock Holmes anthology from MX Publishing is now also available in audio format.

Best Selling Author

Martin Daley

Martin was born in Carlisle, Cumbria. He earned his MA with Teesside University during a successful working career which culminated in him running his own business. His thirty-year writing career began when he was researching the life and military career of his inspirational great-great grandfather Isaac Scott. Isaac was a soldier during the nineteenth century and in For Queen and Cumberland, Martin tells his story and that of two other ancestors from working class backgrounds who joined the army to fight in foreign wars. The book was followed by Anonymous Heroes, set against the First World War, which also links the author’s family history, with the wider social, political and military history that most people are familiar with.

Martin’s eclectic taste in reading ranges from Charles Cumming to Bill Bryson; from Amy Lawrence to Simon Schama. ‘As I am an avid reader of period works – my favourite literary characters being Sherlock Holmes and John Watson – I would have to include Doyle, Christie, Dickens and Wodehouse in that list too. Although Holmes and Watson may be my favourite individual characters, my ‘desert island’ book would be Alexandra Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. It has it all: action, adventure, romance, intrigue, betrayal. It’s just a fantastic book that I keep going back to.’

 

Author Martin Daley

Fiction Books

The Adventure of the Spanish Drums

The Selected Cases of Doctor Watson

Publisher: MX Publishing
Published Date: November 2023
Format: Paperback
Category: Detective Fiction
ISBN: 978-1804243220

Watson is in the vaults of his bank Cox & Co. looking for a gift given to him by his wife Mary, shortly after they met. While he is there, his eye inevitably falls upon his old despatch box and he spends the following hours looking through the adventures he shared with Sherlock Holmes.

The Adventure of the Spanish Drums

The Adventure of the Spanish Drums

Publisher: Irregular Special Press
Published Date: October 2010
Format: Paperback
Category: Crime
Illustrations: B&W Photographs
ISBN: 1901091430

Doctor Watson narrates the hitherto unrecorded case concerning the theft of the Border Regiment's most prize possession, The Arroyo Drums. His tale takes us from Kandahar to Carlisle as a former army colleague informs him of the theft and asks that he and his friend Sherlock Holmes travel north to investigate the crime.

The Casebook of Inspector Armstrong - Volume 1

The Casebook of Inspector Armstrong Vol I

Publisher: MX Publishing
Published Date: October 2017
Format: Paperback / Kindle / Audio book
Category: Crime
ISBN:
1787052154

Cornelius Armstrong is a Detective Inspector in  Edwardian Carlisle. In the first of these two adventures, he investigates the brutal murder of a young immigrant on the corner of West Walls and Dean Tait's Lane in November 1903. In doing so he uncovers a far wider web of underworld crime.

The Casebook of Inspector Armstrong - Volume 2

The Casebook of Inspector Armstrong Vol II

Publisher: MX Publishing
Published Date: November 2017
Format: Paperback / Kindle / Audio book
Category: Crime
ISBN: 9781787052185

The Bells and Plate Fix is set against Cumberland's biggest horse races, The Carlisle Racing Bells and The Cumberland Plate.

When a bookie's clerk is found face down in the River Eden, Inspector Armstrong believes there is more to his death than meets the eye.

The Casebook of Inspector Armstrong - Volume 3

The Casebook of Inspector Armstrong Vol III

Publisher: MX Publishing
Published Date: December 2017
Format: Paperback / Kindle / Audio book
Category: Crime
ISBN: 9781787052215

An unknown American tourist, who will one day achieve greatness, visits Carlisle to research his family history. His arrival coincides with Inspector Armstrong's investigating of a macabre series of grave-robbing incidents in the city. The detective's enquiries inadvertently lead him into investigating a case that had lain dormant for over seventy years.

The Casebook of Inspector Armstrong - Volume 4

The Casebook of Inspector Armstrong Vol IV

Publisher: MX Publishing
Published Date: 2020
Format: Paperback / Kindle / Audio book
Category: Detective Fiction
ISBN:9781 78705 6428

As the country mourns the passing of Queen Victoria, Inspector Cornelius Armstrong finds himself wrestling with a series of complex investigations that threaten to overwhelm the City Police Force.

Non-Fiction Books

For Queen and Cumberland

For Queen and Cumberland

Publisher: Hayloft
Published Date: December 2008
Format: Paperback
Category: History
Illustrations: B&W Photographs
ISBN: 19045 24575

Jacob Reed joined the army to escape the disease-ridden poverty of 1840s Carlisle, but his years of peaceful soldiering came to an end with the outbreak of the Crimean War where disease and combat took their dreadful toll of life.

Anonymous Heroes - Martin Daley

Anonymous Heroes

Publisher: Hayloft
Published Date: December 2009
Format: Paperback
Category: History
Illustrations: B&W Photographs
ISBN: 978 190 452 4731

In this story of the Great War... the challenge was to link local and family history to national and international history… By telling the story of his forefathers, Martin adds a human element and at the same time gives a snapshot of what life was like for working-class people in Carlisle. The period covered in this book was a time of great change.

The Day We Went To Arsenal

The Day We Went To Arsenal

Publisher: DB Publishing
Published Date: 2014
Format: Paperback
Category: Sport and History
Illustrations: B&W Photographs
ISBN: 9781 7809 103674

In 1951, tiny Carlisle United, from the Third Division North played the biggest game in their brief history when they were drawn to play the mighty Arsenal in the Third Round of the FA Cup. It was an event that has gone down in Carlisle folklore.

Fourth, First and Fulham

Fourth, First & Fulham

Publisher: DB Publishing
Published Date: 2012
Format: Paperback
Category: Sport and History
Illustrations: B&W Photographs
ISBN: 9781 7809 10321

Fourth, First & Fulham is an unusual title but is explained by its sub-title: The Golden Era of Carlisle United. Over a twelve-year period during the 1960s and 1970s the small Cumbrian club rose through the Football League, winning promotions and titles, performing heroic giant-killing acts, and taking part in its one and only European competition.