Martin Fraser
Author's story
After nearly 38 years working for Barclays Bank International Ltd, subsequently Barclays Bank Plc, one of the largest banks in the world, Martin Fraser took his chance and the opportunity to follow his dream.
Born in 1961, his mother taught music, while his father worked for the Signals Research and Development Establishment, the Military Research Centre in Christchurch, developing Military communications satellites.
From a young age, he developed a lifelong passion for history, reading, films, music, photography, the natural world and sport, which helped to fuel Martin’s imagination and fill his inquiring mind with possibilities. With both parents, older brother Grenville and uncle, all writers or musicians, it was inevitable that Martin should harbour an artistic seed waiting to germinate and burst onto the world.
On countless occasions, Martin would sit at his desk and dream of leaving the bank and unleashing his creative talents, but personal circumstances wouldn’t allow it. Eventually, though, when the chance came, Martin didn’t hesitate.
In 2022, that dream was realised with the completion of his first novel, The Shadow of the Albatross, a fast-moving international thriller set around the millionaire’s playground of Sandbanks in Dorset, Central London, and Wimbledon Village, featuring nefarious billionaire Olga Devereux. In 2023, Martin finished the first follow-up novel entitled The Cerberus File, set in London, Poole, and Jersey. Plans are already well advanced for the as-yet-untitled third novel to feature MI5 Intelligence Officer Greg Travers.
Martin lives in Poole with his beloved Rescue dog Oscar. Martin eschews the current TV trend for grim, dour, dreary and confusing thrillers that leave one feeling distinctly un-thrilled and more often than not end with an unsatisfyingly damp squib. As Martin says, “The clues in the title, a thriller should thrill, if it doesn’t, what’s the point?”
In loving memory of my partner
Elaine Travers
On Christmas Day 2022, I presented Elaine with a cardboard golden box containing the 6th draft of my manuscript for The Shadow of the Albatross. She was speechless and completely amazed as she opened the box and found the completed manuscript. Started in February of that year, I had managed to complete the manuscript to this point in complete secrecy. She spent the Christmas period reading the novel and found it irresistible. From that point on she became my biggest cheerleader. From that moment, the manuscript has received multiple revisions as part of the necessary polishing process. She would regularly ask when I was going to start the follow-up. The answer came soon enough. When I began work on the Cerberus File in February 2023. She revelled in receiving each new chapter to proofread and seeing the story arc develop.
Sadly, ill health dogged her in the second half of 2024. While we expected her to make a full recovery, fate cruelly intervened. She sadly passed away at the end of March 2025, within sight of the publication of The Shadow of the Albatross.
