Kindly doctor puts deadly duo under the microscope

Dr Keith Souter has been writing for the Wakefield Express for 30 years.

Dr Keith Souter is well known to readers as the face of the Wakefield Express’ Doctor’s Casebook column for the past 32 years.

But the retired GP from the Southgate Surgery is also a published author of about 50 books.

The grandad-of-two’s latest projects involve short stories about serial killer Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis Professor Moriarty.

Dr Keith Souter has written for A Head for Murder, under his pen name of Keith Moray, for a collection of Jack The Ripper short stories.

Dr Souter has contributed to two different anthologies under his crime writing alias of Keith Moray.

The 63-year-old, from Sandal, said: “I saw an advert in Red Herring, the Crime Writers Association’s magazine, calling for submissions. I’ve always been fascinated by Sherlock Holmes. Most people get into crime writing through him and I was no exception.”

But Dr Souter, despite a writing career stretching back to 1976, has been reluctant to add to the Holmes legend until now, citing the difficulty of living up to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s reputation and the pitfalls of writing about a character so ingrained on the memory.

But he said: “This was the perfect opportunity because I was coming at it from a different angle - Professor Moriaty.”

His story, The Fulham Strangler, adds another of Dr Souter’s interests, dice and dice games.

But he added: “It is not at all as you would expect it to be.”

The retired medic faced a similar problem tackling the subject of Jack The Ripper story, everybody has an opinion on the identity of the killer.

But Dr Souter said his story, A Head for Murder, approached the story for a different perspective.

Dr Keith Souter has written for The Fulham Strangler, under his pen name of Keith Moray, for a collection of short stories about Sherlock Holmes' nemesis.

He said: “I’ve come at it from phrenology - the idea you can determine someone’s character by examining their head. We know now that it’s a pseudo science, but at the time people set up as consulting phrenologists. It’s not a blood and guts story. It’s a little bit of a mystery.

“Some of the original suspects are mentioned and the question is posed to the reader, ‘who is it?’

“I put forward a solution, which again is not quite as how you would imagine it, because, remember it’s fiction.”