When Tommy Trump decided to write a detective story, he didn't have to look very far for the characters to people it...

He knew them already - as fellow regulars at that well-known Winchester watering hole, the Rising Sun, in Bridge Street.

Murder with a Scottish Connection, set in the First World War, is a whodunnit featuring Inspector Chris Hardie, a rising star of the Winchester CID.

Tommy's pals, George Hardie and Chris House, were the joint-inspirations for the tenacious sleuth, while the Glaswegian Bob Harvey, a former reporter on the Hampshire Chronicle, was reincarnated as the eponymous police surgeon.

Popular barmaid, Kate Derwent, turned up as a murder victim, while the Riser's veteran landlord, Alfie Morrison, found himself pulling the pints in fiction as well as fact.

Flat feet prevent Inspector Hardie from enlisting, but the Army's loss is the CID's gain, as he unravels the murders - half a dozen of them - and all without the help of modern technology.

Tommy (76) lives with his wife, Sevil, in Mountbatten Court, Andover Road. When he fancies a pint, she drives him down to the Rising Sun, which was his first pub 60 years ago and remains his favourite.

"I was born just round the corner in St John's Street. There were lots of pubs in Winchester then and we lads used to have a half in each, but we always ended up in the Riser," he said.

This is his first published novel, though he has written four other Inspector Hardie stories and a whole series on Inspector Noal, Hardie's mentor.

* Murder with a Scottish Connection is published by Writersworld at £7.95 and is available at Waterstones and Wells bookshops in Winchester, Ottakars in Eastleigh and Volumes, of Romsey.