P. J. Brooke

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P.J. Brooke in Biblocafe, Glasgow.

P.J. Brooke is the writing name of Philip James O'Brien and Jane Brooke. As P.J. Brooke they have written two contemporary crime thrillers set in Granada, Spain, featuring sub-Inspector Max Romero.

Biographies

Philip O'Brien was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, in 1943, to a German mother and Irish father. The family moved to Ardrossan, Ayrshire, when he was 12. He attended St. Aloysius' College in Glasgow, and then studied at St Andrews University, Queen's University, Ontario and then postgraduate work at Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile, and the University of Sussex. After a brief spell with the Foreign Office, he taught Latin American Studies at the University of Glasgow, and is author of books and articles on Latin America. He was the editor of the Macmillan Latin American Series.

His work enabled regular research trips to Latin America: he was in Chile during the Allende Government and Pinochet's dictatorship, in Peru during the rise of the Maoist guerrilla movement Sendero Luminoso, and in Venezuela during the Chávez Revolution. In Scotland he campaigned actively on behalf of Latin American human rights and was Chair of the Scottish Chile and Argentina Solidarity Campaign and Scotland Against the Gulf War, stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Scottish Green Party, and was the Scottish Green Party member of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, which led to the formation of the Scottish Parliament.

Jane Brooke was born in Normanton, Yorkshire, in 1951. She attended Pontefract and District Girls High School, then York University. She was a research assistant at Stirling University, and did postgraduate work at Lancaster University and Edinburgh University. She trained as a historian and social scientist, worked as an urban planner and policy advisor in Scottish local government in Glasgow and Paisley, but also advised an international group of voluntary organisations at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in New York.

She is the co-author of various articles on urban development and sustainability, edited "Housing and the Environment: The New Agenda" published by the Chartered Institute of Housing in 1992 and was Secretary of the Green Party in Scotland.

Philip O'Brien and Jane Brooke married in 2001. Philip has two sons by his first wife Jaqueline who died in 2000.

Writing fiction

Philip O'Brien started writing fiction after the death of his first wife. Jane Brooke got involved, commenting on exercises prepared for his creative writing class at Glasgow University, and then taking a more active role. Blood Wedding, their first novel, was published in 2008 by Constable & Robinson in UK and Soho Press in the USA, and a second novel, A Darker Night, is scheduled for publication in July 2010.

Bibliography

Fiction (as P.J. Brooke)

• Blood Wedding, P.J. Brooke, Constable & Robinson London and Soho Press, New York. 2008.
• A Darker Night, P.J. Brooke, Constable & Robinson London and Soho Press, New York. 2010.

Non Fiction

• Allende's Chile, ed by Philip O'Brien, Praeger New York,1976
• Chile: State and Revolution, I.Roxborough,P. O'Brien and J.Roddick, MacMillan, London 1976, Holmes and Meier, New York, 1977.
• Chile:The Pinochet Decade, P.O'Brien and J.Roddick,Latin American Bureau, London 1983
• Generals in Retreat, ed by P.O'Brien and P. Cammack, Manchester University Press.1985
• Housing and the Environment: The New Agenda, Bhatti, Brooke and Gibson, Chartered Institute of Housing, London.1992

References

1. P.J.Brooke official website
2. Interview with Philip O'Brien and Jane Brooke "The Scotsman" 9 December 2008

External links

• Official website
• Scotsman Interview with Philip O'Brien and Jane Brooke, The Scotsman, 9 December 2008
• Constable & Robinson
• Soho Press