Mark Ellis has been awarded the very first Cob and Pen Literary Award for Best Crime Fiction of 2025 at the inaugural Bloody Barnes Crime Festival, a standout new prize in the crime fiction world.
His winning novel, Death Of An Officer, rose to the top of a competitive shortlist that included bestselling author Anthony Horowitz. The award marks a notable milestone for Ellis’s acclaimed Frank Merlin wartime detective series, which continues to go from strength to strength.
The Frank Merlin Novels
Six Frank Merlin novels by Mark Ellis have already captivated readers, and the seventh is now underway.
Set in bomb-scarred wartime London, the series follows DCI Frank Merlin as he navigates murder investigations against a backdrop of blacked-out streets, bomb sites, gangland power struggles, military corruption and wartime espionage. Praised for its layered plotting and vivid sense of place, the books have built a loyal and growing readership in the UK, the US and internationally.
As The Times noted in a recent review:
“If the others evoke a vanished London so impressively, are graced with such complex plots and deep characterisation, and, above all, are written so well I shall have to read them all.”
Alongside the fiction series, Ellis recently published Boom Time, a non-fiction exploration of true crime in WWII London, further underlining his authority on the period.
Mark Ellis: Looking Ahead
Interest in the wider potential of the Frank Merlin series continues to develop. A television script has been commissioned to explore adaptation possibilities, with early-stage conversations taking place regarding future opportunities.
With major literary recognition now secured and a new instalment underway, the Frank Merlin series enters its next chapter with considerable momentum.
Journalists, reviewers and broadcasters interested in speaking to Mark Ellis, or in reading any of the existing novels ahead of book seven, are warmly invited to get in touch. Review copies are available on request.
Order your copies of the Frank Merlin novels by Mark Ellis online here.
And read more on the Writing.ie Crime Scene blog here.
