WRITER Henry Sutton has a very soft spot for Great Yarmouth.

So it's a little surprising he's setting his new series of dark crime novels there.

"The place has always been a dominant part of my life," he explains. "I was born in Gorleston just down the road but my father ran a factory in Yarmouth, my grandfather a garage and my great grandfather a fleet of herring boats, so it's a big part of my heritage.

"From a crime-writing perspective, it's perfect. Visually it's stunning with the beach, the so-called Golden Mile and the port but there are large parts of the town that are hugely deprived as well. It has the worst crime figures in East Anglia and is up there in terms of mental health statistics as well.

"I think you have to have a good feel for a place if you want to set your story there and while it's not unbounded love I do have a real passion for Great Yarmouth."

Time to Win, written under Henry's pseudonym of Harry Brett, came out last month and has already attracted huge praise from the crime-writing fraternity drawing comparisons to the seaside noir of the likes of Graham Greene and Ted Lewis.

It opens with local crime boss Richard Goodwin being pulled from the river and although it looks like suicide, his widow Tatiana knows Rich collected enemies like poker chips.

Realising how little she knows about the man she married, she seeks to uncover the truth about Rich's death and take over the reins of the family business, overseeing a waterfront casino deal Rich hoped would put Yarmouth on the map.

Time to Win is Henry's tenth book but the first he's set in a real place and the first featuring the Goodwin family.

"I've always wanted to write a strong female lead for this book," he tells me, "and I'm really pleased with how she turned out. I've nearly finished the second book in the series and I have a three-book contract but who knows where it will go after that."

The former literary Editor of Esquire magazine and the Daily Mirror, Henry was also co-founder of the Noirwich crime festival and teaches at the University of East Anglia, where he is a co-director of the MA Prose Fiction course and director of the new Creative Writing MA Crime Fiction course.

He will be appearing at Waterstones, High Street, Colchester, on May 22 from 7pm, when he will be in discussion with good friend, Essex-based author, James Garbutt, aka James Henry.

That was the pseudonym the pair used while penning the DS Jack Frost novel, First Frost, and as well as talking about Henry's Time to Win book, James will no doubt be revealing details of the latest Frost prequel, Frost At Midnight due out next Thursday, May 18.

Henry says: "I've known James for years and obviously we co-wrote the first Frost book together. The last time we did this kind of thing in Colchester I interviewed him about his book Blackwater so this time the tables are going to be turned and he's interviewing me. We'll just have to see how that goes but I expect there will be plenty of banter like before."

Tickets are £2, available on the doors, which open at 6.30pm.