Robert Partridge

Robert Partridge (born c. 1954), known also by his pen name Peter Grainger, is an English novelist. He was born in England. He obtained a degree in English literature, and became an English teacher, teaching for twenty years at Cromwell Community College in Chatteris.

In 2012 he wrote a novel, Afon, under his real name, with a protagonist named Peter Grainger. He wrote two more novels and a book of short stories but was unable to find a publisher, so he self-published them on Kindle. Partridge began earning about £30 a month from the books, and realized that to earn more he would have to write a series. He chose detective novels, though he had not read any, as he was uninterested in writing romance or fantasy fiction, the two most popular genres. He wrote An Accidental Death under the pseudonym Peter Grainger; the lead character was D. C. Smith, a police sergeant in King's Lake, a fictionalized version of King's Lynn, in Norfolk.

The D. C. Smith and King's Lake series have been acquired by Hutchinson Heinemann in the UK, and Union Square in the US, and are scheduled for publication in physical form in 2026 in the UK, and during 2026 and 2027 in the US. Rights to the books have also been acquired by local publishers in Germany, Finland, France, the Netherlands, and Turkey.