Why mystery readers will be seeing a lot of the detective DS Cross book series

Tim Sullivan’s screenwriting credits include the films “A Handful of Dust,” “Where Angels Fear to Tread,” and “Letters to Juliet.” He’s also directed TV, including episodes of “Sherlock Holmes.” His series of crime novels, which launched in the U.S. in late 2025 with “The Dentist,” features DS George Cross, who is on the autistic spectrum. The series will roll out “The Cyclist” on Jan. 13, “The Patient” on Feb. 3, “The Politician” on March 3, “The Monk” on April 7 and “The Teacher” on May 5. Here, he takes the Book Pages Q&A.

Q. Please tell readers about your DS George Cross mysteries, which are rolling out into U.S. bookstores in the coming months.

My series of crime novels are centered around Detective Sergeant George Cross. George is on the autistic spectrum. He has autistic spectrum condition, which used to be known as Asperger’s syndrome. This has many consequences for George. He can come across as brusque, rude even, when he doesn’t mean to be. But it is what makes him a great detective. It doesn’t give him a superpower where he can look at a murder scene and come up miraculously with an instant solution. It gives him the patience and a dogged determination to examine the normal, the routine and the mundane in the knowledge that this is where the answer to any case will often lie.

His attention to detail and looking in places other detectives choose to ignore, means he has the highest arrest-to-conviction rate in his force. Things other detectives dismiss as irrelevant to a case, or trivial, are what George is drawn to and it is so often where he finds the answer to a case. Based in the city of Bristol where I grew up, with the city of Bath nearby, the series also hopefully conjures up images of the beautiful southwest of England.

As with many people on the autistic spectrum, George is obsessed with things being right or done in the correct way, be it punctuation, pronunciation, the accuracy of historical facts, or the way his tea is made – loose leaf always, never a bag, milk in the cup first. He is, for example, incapable of disobeying an order, although he often finds ingenious ways around this. For him, order is the order of the day. Without order there can only be chaos. This need for things to be right neatly falls into line with his work. He needs the right thing to be done. The right person to be arrested and convicted. For justice to be done.

Q. You’ve worked in film and television — notably directing Sherlock Holmes adaptations — how did that affect the creation of your own detective character?

I’ve always had an interest in autism, particularly in the workplace. It can so easily be misinterpreted and presents a challenge for both the neurodivergent person and the neurotypical. I’d done many years of research and so it only seemed natural to put George on the spectrum.

In many ways he fits into a long tradition of detectives on the spectrum. From Auguste Dupin, Sherlock, Poirot and arguably Maigret, many fictional detectives would now be considered to sit somewhere on the spectrum. With Sherlock, this was very much the case. What I learned from Jeremy Brett as Sherlock was his loyalty to the original text. He recognized that Conan Doyle had created something unique and to be faithful to his writing would lead to an authentic portrayal of the great detective.

Q. As well as working on adaptations of E.M. Forster’s “Where Angels Fear to Tread” and Evelyn Waugh’s “A Handful of Dust,” you also worked on the animated Aardman film “Flushed Away” – how did these experiences affect your novel writing?

I think the main things I took from writing screenplays was the importance of narrative drive. I also came away with an ability to set scenes and write dialogue, which have both proved to be useful in writing the novels. The difference between the two forms comes in the rhythms. Screenplays are obviously a lot shorter than novels. There is more time to develop things in a book, which took a lot of getting used to. I had to find my rhythm and make sure the books weren’t at all episodic. Working in animation is such a different process to live-action movies and I suppose one thing I took away from that process is that things can always be improved.

Q. What are you reading now?

I’m working my way through Michael Connelly’s Bosch canon, which is an absolute joy. Coming to the party late means I have a stack of them to read.

Q. How do you decide what to read next?

Often from recommendations of friends or booksellers. Reviews in the papers often result in me buying a book and adding it to an ever-increasing TBR pile.

Q. Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you? 

Like so many people, it has to be “Lord of the Rings,” just the scope of the imagination and the creation of an entirely unfamiliar world. But later it would be Henry James’s “Portrait of a Lady.”

Q. Is there a book or type of book you’re reluctant to read?

I’m not a great one for horror. Just don’t understand the attraction of settling down with a book and scaring yourself half to death.

Q. Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, are there any titles or narrators you’d recommend?

I can’t listen to fiction as an audiobook for some reason, my mind just wanders off. But I really enjoy nonfiction, particularly the work of Ben MacIntyre.

Q. Which books are you planning to read next?

I’m researching the world of horse racing in the UK for a possible Cross novel, so I’m going to be reading books about famous horse trainers and the racing world.

Q. Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?

There were a couple of English teachers at school who had a great influence on me. One was more traditional and introduced me to the works of Henry James and Mark Twain. The other was really into contemporary (at the time) American and European literature and so I found myself immersed in Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Richard Brautigan and Herman Hesse at a young age.

Q. What do you find the most appealing in a book: the plot, the language, the cover, a recommendation? Do you have any examples?

For me, it’s about plot and character and how sometimes, more often than not, they inform each other. The most successful crime fiction has a great character at its heart. I think what appeals to readers with my series is George’s character. His and the inner circle of friends and colleagues who help him navigate his way through life and work. Not that he’s always aware of it.

Q. Do you have a favorite bookstore or bookstore experience?

When I was younger, I liked nothing more than trawling round secondhand bookshops like Thorpes in Guildford and the Wise Owl Bookshop in Clifton, Bristol. You never knew what you were going to stumble upon and were hopefully able to afford. They have both disappeared – along with so many others – which is sad.