HONOURING ROY LEWIS ON OVER HALF A MILLION BOOKS SOLD — JOFFE BOOKS, One of the UK's leading independent publishers

As we celebrate our 100th digest, we would like to take a moment to honour our beloved author Roy Lewis, creator of the Arnold Landon and Inspector Crow mystery series, who recently reached the impressive benchmark of over half a million books sold!

To commemorate this extraordinary achievement, we were delighted to receive a testimonial to Roy from his son, John.

Roy was born in Ton Pentre, Rhondda, South Wales on 17/1/1933. He died on 18/8/2019.

He probably started writing as a teenager, but I have no record to support this, apart from an old photo of him at a typewriter about 1950 (picture on the right).

In the late 1950s he contributed a number of short stories to an Australian publication, Man Magazine (and possibly also Adam). Suffice it to say that these publications mostly consisted of photos of young women in bathing suits with some articles and stories thrown in!

He was first published by Collins in 1969, I think, and stayed with them in their Crime Club series for many years. He took inspiration for his books from what he saw around him, from his early years in the Rhondda, through his years as a Further Education college lecturer, college inspector, and the places where he lived — Wales, the North-East, Spain and France. He also travelled widely in the Far East, which features in his writing as well. Archaeology was of particular interest to him, as was mediaeval history (e.g. the Knights Templar), which is reflected in the Arnold Landon series of books.

Joffe Books Publisher CEO Jasper Joffe on Roy Lewis:

“For a long time I wanted to publish Roy Lewis’s excellent crime novels. We used to speak occasionally on the phone and I always really enjoyed the charming lilt of his voice and his warmth.
I am very proud to publish his books and that we have sold over half a million of them, reaching a whole new generation of crime lovers. There’s a little sadness that he’s not alive to see the new-found success of his titles, but his books live on for his many loyal readers and I am so happy that we are his publisher.”