Patrick Carlisle

Professor Patrick Carlisle is a famous historian. He features in The Death of Johnathan Taylor.

Professor Carlisle is one of the nation’s youngest professors, and possesses a considerable academic reputation. His pay as a professor, supplemented by the proceeds of popular historical works and a considerable inheritance, make him a wealthy man. Beneath this exterior, however, lies a career built from the stolen genius of colleagues.

Peter met Jessica Marlowe when she studied under him as a PHD student. He fell in love with her and they married shortly after she received her doctorate. During their marriage the affection waned, due in no small part to Jessica's aquaintance to Johnathan Taylor, and Patrick developed a drug habit.

Jessica and Taylor participated in a plot to extort money from Patrick with a faked kidnapping, in response to which Carlisle hired Jessica's brother, Allan Marlowe, to seek them out. Conflict ensued when he arrived, and Jessica got in the way of a gun shot, killing her. Some of the crooks involved were convicted, but Carlise, Taylor and Marlowe escaped without charge. Carlisle was left to live with the endlessly nagging guilt of a perfect wife killed through his own stupidity, recklessness and greed.

Blaming Taylor for his wife's death, and with the active incentive that Taylor was blackmailing Carlisle with evidence that much of his work was stolen from James Delahunt, Patrick Carlisle collaborated with Joy Kildean in Taylor's murder.

During The Death of Johnathan Taylor mystery, Allan Marlowe found out that Carlisle had murdered Taylor, and he is now in prison with a life sentence.