Bruce is a writer unafraid of lofty allusions. Following a visit from Michelle, a mystery blonde claiming to be Pat Duffy’s pregnant lover, Bruce reconciles her with old flame Martin Thornton, another squad member at Leddersford, solving their relationship problems simply by telling them to sit down and be quiet until they love each other again, like a sleepy, taciturn Jeremy Kyle. Afterwards, he reflects on their situation;

I just hoped that he and Michelle would behave responsibly. If he were to beat her up, or even strike her once or twice, I would feel guilty.

Sound.

“A pair of star-crossed lovers,” I said to Julie.

She looked surprised.“That sounds clever, Steve. You have a way with words.”

"Not me. Old Bill Shakespeare.”

As he’s known to friends.

“Since when did you -?”

“When I was at school,” I replied. “Romeo and Juliet was a set text”

“You never cease to surprise me,” she said.

If you were surprised by Julie’s reaction to Barnes remembering five words from the single most famous play of all time, well, you get used to it in Striker after a while. Several people in the book deliver gob-smacked reactions to the amazingly clever things Barnes says, not to mention how fit, handsome, glamorous and good-at-solving-murders he is. In fairness though, Bruce can also dish out a compliment, especially when he recognises a fellow poet, someone who, like Old Billy Shakes, also has a way with words. Like the driver who cheers Barnes up on the way to the stadium;

“Take Leddersford up, and you’ll be talk of the town,” the driver said.

I smiled. That was a nice play on words. Talk of the town.

Leddersford Town.

What Bruce needed while he was writing the book was someone to say, “Look, Steve, in the nicest possible way, that’s just not what a play on words is, mate”. Or maybe they did, but as they flapped their gums all he heard was them telling him how fit his body was.

It’s hard not to imagine Bruce in this way, a lone maverick stealing away to his typewriter after a training session. Pencil over ear, tongue in teeth, well-worn copy of Lancashire Moorland Digest open by his side. His lovely big cow’s face set in glassy-eyed focus. The studied concentration on his face giving him the look of Brenda Fricker doing a really hard Sudoku as he earnestly summons forth frothy torrents of hot, sassy verbage. All to the tap tap tap of his two index fingers and the endless, mechanical whirring of his wonderful, literary brain.

This is the kind of focus you need to write a book with the concentrated class of Striker. To write sentences like “An Englishman’s home is his castle. That applies to other nations too”, “I decided to wear tracksuit and trainers. That is the kind of decision I make regularly”, “include me out - drugs is for mugs” or, most memorably, “in a contest between human flesh and a concrete shute, the concrete will always win”. It’s also just interesting to see where all of these now classic household phrases originated.

It’s heartening to picture Bruce typing these words, then springing from his red leather desk chair, throwing open the doors to his walnut-panelled study and unveiling the manuscript to polite-but-baffled responses from his loved ones. One might have presumed that there also followed conversations with kind, patient doctors gently explaining in soothing tones that his family loves him and are just a bit concerned. Perhaps this conversation would be within the comforting environs of a nicely-lit part of an unfamiliar hospital, a few counties over.

Thankfully, Striker and its two sequels were released without risk of Bruce’s involuntary admission to protected housing, and so the world got experience it unhindered, particularly its thrilling conclusion. It would, of course, be presumptuous to imply that Bruce was running out of time or energy at this point, but it does bear mentioning that the end of the novel seems fairly rushed. A rather bewildering series of events - the outing of Eddie Carberry as the killer, his stealing of a weapon from an army facility, his subsequent attempt at murdering Barnes with a sniper rifle AND the climactic game against Fulham which seals Leddersford’s promotion - all take place in the book’s last four pages. This would be easier to understand had the previous 124 pages not contained long, rambling accounts of Lancastrian aqueducts, ancient nomadic tribes and constant references to that bloody car.

More though, as I turned the last page, I found I was sorry it was over. Sorry that I wouldn’t have any more Striker to read. Bruce himself may have been modest about Barnes’ abilities – “I was not Sherlock Holmes, the great fictional detective – so well does the author do his job that many people believe Sherlock Holmes was a real person” - but perhaps in years to come his crime-fighting exploits will earn the same place in the popular imagination as that other great English sleuth; an inspiring genius whose exploits lead generations of readers to think maybe, just maybe, the stories were real.



Perhaps the series’ real legacy is yet to come, as it births a new football-wide passion for crime writing among lumpen, steadfast defenders with heads like baseball mitts, a good GCSE, and a truly great car.

Until I get the 70 quid necessary to buy SWEEPER, we may never know.