Yorkshire detective and author Roshan Pitteea: 'I spend my days dealing with child abuse, rape and death and in my crime fiction, I want people to feel the realism of policing'

The detective sergeant has spent the last year with Calderdale’s child protection team after a policing career that has seen him work on domestic abuse, stalking and safeguarding cases. That followed eight years as a child protection social worker, with a specialism in assessing child sex offenders.

“In my current job, I deal with everything from child abuse through to rape, serious sexual assault involving children, and child death,” he says. “There are particular procedures that are followed when a child dies unexpectedly and that has to be led usually by the child protection unit…

“It's busy, a lot of plate spinning. But I can't see myself doing anything else. Child protection work is the kind of stuff that gets me out of bed in the morning. And for all of the harrowing cases, I can think of plenty where I feel like we've achieved good outcomes for the children – and that makes it worthwhile for me.”

Alongside his career as a detective, Keighley-based Roshan has built up a profile as a crime author, drawing on years of real-life experience to inform his work. He’s now also launched an independent publishing company as he looks to take greater control of his writing career and help to add to the growing diversity of UK crime fiction.

Gris Gris Publishing officially launches today and will initially become the home for Roshan’s own novels, though he has ambitions to work with other independent authors in the future.

“There are some fantastic books and talented people within traditional publishing,” he says. “For me, this is about creating more space for distinctive stories, characters and voices…My dream is also to see my books on the shelves of Waterstones Bradford. It was such an important place for me as a young reader, so that would feel like coming full circle.”

Over the next 12 months, Roshan hopes to bring all three novels in his Louis Mortimer series under the Gris Gris Publishing banner: Care & Control, The Voodoo Room and his forthcoming third novel No One’s Watching, which is expected to be released in April next year.

All follow a police officer protagonist navigating both complex criminal investigations and the challenges of his personal life, with the next in the series putting stalking in the spotlight.

Roshan’s first tale of the three was released in 2024, a year after he revisited his love for writing by helping a friend with a manuscript about a psychic who helped police with cold cases.

“I've always thought over the years that it would be great to write a book about some of the things that I've seen and experienced, some of the issues,” Roshan reflects. “I've had ideas bubbling away quietly, but never put pen to paper. But after doing that bit of work I decided right I'm gonna sit down and do it.”

As a child, Roshan would often be found reading books by torchlight way after bedtime. Like his father, crime fiction was a particular favourite and he grew up with the likes of James Hadley Chase and Agatha Christie. As a teenager, he won several short story competitions for his crime and mystery writing.

“I loved writing stories,” Roshan says. “I remember when I started in secondary school writing a story as part of my English homework and using actual school staff members as my characters. It was a Halloween type story. And I remember I got a little telling off for that.”

These days, the world that Roshan writes about is one that he knows well. His career began with victim support before he joined a project in Leeds working with boys and young men at risk of sexual exploitation. Then followed a postgraduate degree in social work, eight years with Leeds City Council as a child protection social worker and later a move into policing.

In his writing, the 43-year-old is particularly interested in the emotional and psychological dimensions of crime, focusing not just on the investigation itself, but on the personal consequences experienced by victims, perpetrators and those tasked with uncovering the truth.

He is shaped by years spent interviewing suspects in police interview rooms, supporting vulnerable victims and children through difficult investigations, and witnessing first-hand the devastating impact that crime can have on individuals, families and communities alike.

“I try and write in a procedurally accurate way. I want people to feel the realism," he says. “I want people to feel as much as possible like they're in the room and I feel like I can write it in an authentic way.

"I want to highlight as well the good work that police officers do a lot of the time. When I started writing (the series), all the public services it felt were getting a hammering, particularly post-covid. My mum and dad are nurses by trade and I've pretty much always worked in the public sector.

"So I just wanted to write in a positive way about the work that safeguarding professionals do and highlight some of the complexity as well.

"There's a lot of careful thought that goes into safeguarding children and young people and I don't always feel that it gets properly portrayed on TV and in fiction.

"I’ve also always wanted to add to the diversity UK crime fiction. Growing up, I don’t remember reading about any characters, certainly no lead characters, that looked like me or really resonated with me. It's been nice to draw in some of my cultural background for the books.”

- Gris Gris Publishing launches today. Visit roshanpitteeaauthor.com.