About

The women behind DI Ambrose

A novelist, a lawyer, and one dare that turned into a series.

Pauline Kirk and Jo Summers, who write as PJ Quinn
The Long Story

Two writers, one name on the spine.

PJ Quinn is the pen name for the mother-and-daughter crime writing duo Pauline Kirk and Jo Summers.

Pauline is a published novelist, poet and a publisher. Jo is a lawyer. Both have a love of words.

When Pauline got writer’s block, Jo challenged her to write a crime novel. Somehow Jo ended up writing the novel with her.

The result is the DI Ambrose Mysteries. Set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it’s an era that now seems a lifetime ago.

On the Period

“An era when men wore hats and ladies’ skirts covered their knees.”

No DNA, no PACE, no computers — just a notebook, a telephone box and whoever is willing to talk. But murderers exist even in an age of innocence.