‘Vengeance Day’ by Simon Dinsdale

Published by Sharpe Books,
12 December 2023. 
ISBN: 979-887160735-0 (PB)

The story opens in Derry, November 1998.  Liam Rafferty is 11 years old and idolises his elder brother Martin who is 15.  When Liam spots a guy, he knows doesn’t belong in their area, he alerts his brother.  Martin turned to his friends, ‘he must be a Brit spy. Hugh told us to keep watch’, Martin said. Things escalate and Martin is shot in the head. Liam stares into Hugh’s eyes. I will find them. I swear I will kill them all.’ 

After Martin’s death, Hugh Murphy took Liam in, and he became a fully-fledged volunteer dedicated to a united Ireland. Move forward 25 years and Liam discovered that Hugh and the three senior commanders had betrayed everyone’s trust using funds to purchase hard drugs. So, Liam set about with the munitions they had stolen recruiting his own band of fighters. Liam and his group then disappeared. Hugh and his organisation have been hunting him ever since. 

Liam had made a vow to find and kill the men responsible for Martin’s death. Years passed but when he least expected it the British Press exposed a police officer in Essex as Martin’s killer. 

Detective Christian Dane works on major crimes and has long been on the trail of a network of drug dealers. The man who organises the ring of dealers has cleverly managed to avoid being identified but eventually Dane discovers that he worked with him during his time in the British Army. 

When Karen Teller, a veteran MI5 officer, receives a warning of an imminent terrorist attack, by an unknown dissident group, Dane is called in to investigate.

Still seeking to avenge his brother Martin’s death. Liam Rafferty and Mary Sullivan both Irish Republican dissidents. plan is to bring terror to the British mainland to avenge Liam's brother’s murder. 

While Dane is determined to find and stop what he believes could be multiple killings he is having to work around hindrance from Chief Superintendent Brown of the Met Counter Terrorism Command.  They knew each other in the army and Brown nearly got Dane killed. Dane isolates and arrests some of the gang and confirms that the threat is real.

Unbeknown to Dane, Liam is determined to take everything from him including his family and loved ones.  Can Dane protect them from Rafferty’s vengeance?

This is a thrilling read. An action-packed book you really cannot put down. What is called a heart in your mouth book. Most highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett

Simon Dinsdale served twelve years with the British army in the 1970’s before joining Essex police in 1980. He spent 30 years in the police eventually achieving the rank of Detective Superintendent. Over his career he led over a hundred major investigations. He now writes, travels and speaks about his experiences. He lives in Essex.

Coming Soon: 'Grave Intent' by Sarah Ward

Published by Canelo Crime

11 June 2026. 

Book 3 in the Carla James series.

Foul deeds lie buried under campus grounds.
Jericho College is closed for the summer break. But professor Carla James is busy teaching a short course to a small group of archaeology enthusiasts.

Keen to get involved with local history, the newcomers become fixated on the century-old grave of Meg Woodthorpe.
Killed for being a witch. A single stone sits on the burial site supposedly to prevent her rising again.

And excavations reveal she may have. Meg's body is no longer there. She has been replaced by a modern victim.
With no one missing, Carla must work out who this is and where Meg has gone.

Sarah Ward the author of four DC Childs novels set in the Derbyshire Peak District where she lives. She is also writes gothic historical thrillers as Rhiannon Ward. The Birthday Girl, is the first book in her new Welsh based series, published 6th April 2023. She has also written Doctor Who audio dramas. Sarah is on Board of the Crime Writers Association and Friends of Buxton Festival, is a member of Crime Cymru, and a Royal Literary Fund fellow at Sheffield University.  

www.crimepieces.com 

‘The Counting Game’ by Sinéad Nolan

Published by HarperCollins,
23 April 2026.
ISBN: 978-0-00866901-0 (PB)

Sinéad Nolan’s first novel is set in rural Ireland during 1995. Nine-year-old Jack is playing in woods near his home in Drumsuin with his sister Saoirse (who is 13) when she goes missing. The village goes once again into mourning as this is not the first time that a girl has disappeared from the forest. No traces of these previous girls have been found, and there are no clues as to what has happened to Saoirse. 

The children come from a broken home. Their father left to live in Dublin some time previously, their troubled mother died more recently and they are looked after by their older sister Kate. Their father’s disabled sister Aunt Bronagh lives close by, but she has her own problems which can make her appear unsympathetic and is away when Saoirse goes missing. Kate has a history of self-harming. There are secrets between Jack and Saoirse. The family is looked on with suspicion by the locals. 

One-eyed Garda Walter Morris heads the investigation, and Freya Hemmings is summoned from Dublin. She is a former journalist and semi-pro singer who has retrained as a psychotherapist and who has, in the way of contemporary crime novels, her own back story, including the loss of a daughter and a failed relationship which led her to the bottle. She is needed because Jack, the one person who was present when his sister went missing, has been traumatized by his mother’s death and finds it difficult to talk to anyone. He knows things but doesn’t – or can’t - tell. The word ‘erase’ crops up many times when Jack’s memories come to the surface. He finds it easier to express his emotions by painting pictures. 

The forest, in which the children play their counting game (it appears to be like hide and seek), looms malevolently over the whole story. It was the site of one of the infamous Magdalene laundries and is a source of terror for some people. Kate says: ‘Everyone in the village knows the forest makes people pay for disrespecting it. The evil forces in that forest stem from the Magdalene Laundry and the horrors back then – the forest felt desecrated by these atrocities – so that’s why we don’t mistreat the forest now. You mess with that forest and you’ll end up involved. ..... The game ... it’s not just a game, it’s a curse you can’t escape.’ And later: ‘People think the rumours about that forest are a joke, but they’re not. The forest knows how to punish people who don’t respect it.’ As a consequence Freya is reluctant to enter the forest when curiosity gets the better of her. There are also claims that an intimidating figure, ‘The Creature’, lives there. 

There are a number of inter-personal relations which add to the problems encountered by the investigation into what has happened to Saoirse, but the story opens up as time goes by, particularly after the remains of one of the earlier missing girls are found. The plot moves swiftly and keeps us guessing. The characters are well-drawn and the conclusion is convincing. It is a welcome and impressive debut.
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Reviewer: David Whittle 

Sinéad Nolan grew up playing between the forests and beaches of leafy County Dublin, Ireland. She holds a degree in Creative Writing from University of Derby and a Masters in Newspaper Journalism from Nottingham Trent University. She has been a regular freelance feature writer for the Sunday World, the Irish Independent and has had short stories shortlisted for the Momaya Press Awards and the Francis McManus awards for RTE Radio. Apart from writing, her other profession is Counselling and Psychotherapy. She works in private practice as a BACP Registered Counsellor in central London. In the moments she is not writing, she enjoys watching true crime documentaries, travelling and reading. She lives with her husband in London. 

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then.

Coming Soon: Sherlock Holmes and the Aeronauts by Linda Stratmann

Published by Sapere Books, 

5 June 2026

    Book 11 in the Early Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

1879

The death of a young mathematician, Aubrey Soames, appears to be accidental, but Sherlock Holmes suspects a cleverly planned murder may have taken place.

The son of Sir Finlay Soames, a senior official at the War Office, Aubrey was helping the intrepid aeronaut Lord Callender to design a dirigible balloon.

Adventure magazine is offering a prize of £1,000 to the first Englishman to fly across the Channel from France to England, attracting huge wagers on the outcome.

And Lord Callender has been preparing to take part.

Despite Aubrey’s death, Callender is still planning to enter and Sherlock sends his good friend Mr Stamford to spy on the test flights at Callender Hall. 

Linda Stratmann was born in Leicester in 1948 and first started scribbling stories and poems at the age of six. She became interested in true crime when watching Edgar Lustgarten on TV in the 1950s. Linda attended Wyggeston Girls Grammar School, trained to be a chemist’s dispenser, and later studied at Newcastle University where she obtained a first in Psychology. She then spent 27 years in the civil service before leaving to devote her time to writing. Linda loves spending time in libraries and archives and really enjoys giving talks on her subject.  

www.lindastratmann.com 

‘This Cold Night’ by Thorne Moore

Independently published,
26 April 2026.
ISBN: 979-825596833-3 (PB)

One of those much-quoted axioms of crime fiction is that it's the plot that keeps you reading one book, but the characters who leave you desperate for the next.  Thorne Moore has discovered a talent for both; once you've read one book with her name on the cover, a new one becomes a must-have, to follow the fate of new people or the fortunes of familiar ones. 

This Cold Night is the third in a series featuring former detective constable Rosanna Quillan. Rosanna left the police when she realized getting a result had become more important than serving justice. She has discovered a talent of her own, for tracking down missing persons, and with the help of computer-whizz Gethin Matthews, who has become her life-partner, she sets about trying to find what became of Lianne, who left home at sixteen uncared-for and unmissed. 

The story she pieces together is full of surprises, which it would be a shame to give away. None of the characters she encounters are what they seem, all the way from Lianne's aunt who sets the ball rolling to the final reveal which I guarantee will leave you open-mouthed. 

And therein lies Thorne Moore's secret – the characters. They all have pasts, and lives away from the page, and even the most minor of them has a personality. There's a body, as befits a crime novel, and there's more than one mystery to solve, but at its heart the book is about family. Since the last in the series Rosanna has found a stable family to replace the bullied and abused mother she lost and the father she despises. Gethin is a gentle giant who gave up city life to care for his father who has dementia. Rosanna now lives in their welcoming farmhouse home and helps with the caring. 

Elsewhere there are different kinds of family, some the right kind with warmth and support, others with less positive agendas. It's hard to describe the plethora of other players who people them without giving the game away; suffice to say they are all meticulously drawn, from misguided coppers to trusting landlords and everyone in between. Locations are equally well realized: large houses which offer different kinds of welcome, an extensive millionaire-style estate, small towns and large ones.  

Thorne Moore's last venture into series fiction was a self-contained science fiction trilogy. With the Cold Cases series she has returned to her comfort zone of domestic noir – and this time she has created a pair of leading characters with the potential to run and run. I for one sincerely hope they do.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick 

Thorne Moore grew up in Luton, near London, but has lived in Pembrokeshire in West Wales for the last 40 years. She writes psychological crime, or domestic noir, often with an historical twist, focusing on the cause and consequences of crimes rather than on the details of the crimes themselves. A Time for Silence, set in Pembrokeshire, was published by Honno in 2012. It was followed by Motherlove and The Unravelling, set partly in a fictional version of Luton. Shadows, published by Lume in 2017, is set in an old house in Pembrokeshire, and is paired with Long Shadows, which explains the history and mysteries of the same house from Medieval times to the late Victorian period. Her latest crime novel, Fatal Collision, published by Diamond Crime in 2022, is set on the Pembrokeshire coast.  

https://www.thornemoore.co.uk/  

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

‘Murder in the Scottish Highlands’ by Dee MacDonald

Published by Bookouture,
28 August 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-83525506-3 (PB)

When on holiday from Edinburgh, Ally McKinley had fallen in love with an old two-storey malthouse just outside of the small riverside village of Locharran.  Her husband Ken had been a wonderful husband and father but lacked an adventurous spirit. Now seven years after his death she has decided to retire to Locharran. Purchasing the Auld Malthouse was costly but converting it to a B&B with three en-suite bedrooms  should help to payback her overspend on the conversion. So, five feet ten inches tall and sixty-eight years of age, Ally is happily running her guest house. Being a small village, it isn’t long before she is making friends with the locals.

On this bright morning, she is surprised that the guest American, Mr Carrington in Room 1 has not appeared for breakfast. While knocking on his bedroom door she hears a loud scream from somewhere below. And leaning out of the window she sees her cleaner Morag, with her hand over her mouth staring in horror at the prone figure at her feet lying across the cobblestoned courtyard with a dagger protruding from the centre of his back. 

Ally picked up the phone and called the police.  I could do with a wee drop of whisky said Morag in a wobbling voice, that makes two of us says Ally withdrawing the bottle of Glenmorangie from the cupboard. 

Detective Bob Rigby, originally from Birmingham, was not looking joyous at this call-out. He’d come to Inverness for a few quiet years before he retired, and the young police constable was noticeably nervous as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.   

Murdo, the postman, married to Morag, tells Ally that Mr Carrington apparently had Scottish ancestry and was in some way related to the owner of Locharran castle, Hamish Sinclair, the earl who owns most of the land around Locharran.

When the police seem totally baffled, Ally decides to do her own investigation. She learns that her dead guest believed that he was the rightful Earl of Locharran. Even worse, that he had plans for the village that would put many people out of their jobs and even their homes. 

So, which of the locals resorted to murder? Or maybe it was the earl himself, whose entire way of life was threatened. Ally chats to everyone and then quietly lists the names of those who could be suspects. Then one night she is awakened by Wailing Willie, the ghost, who is always heard wailing foretelling a death. And sure enough one of her suspects dies in a suspicious accident. Can she uncover the truth, before there are more killings. 

A fascinating mystery, full of marvellous characters. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett 

Dee MacDonald left Scotland and headed for London at the beginning of the swinging sixties. After typing her way round the West End, she became an air stewardess on long haul routes with BA (then BOAC) for eight years. After that she did market research at Heathrow for both the government statistics and for BA, she became a sales rep. and was the receptionist at the Thames Television Studios in Teddington when they had the franchise. She then ran a small B&B for ten years in Cornwall, where she lives with her husband. Dee has one son and two grandsons who live locally. She has now written twelve novels. Here first series featured Kate Palmer. Her most recent series features Ally McKinleye. You can find Dee on Facebook at 

https://www.facebook.com/dee.macdonald.18659  

‘Dark Shadow’ by Simon Dinsdale

Published by Sharpe Books,
1 December 2023.  
ISBN: 979-887041399-0 (PB)

The opening of this story is set on a bitter cold night in Northern Island at the time of The Troubles. An undercover agent code name ‘Alpha’ is following orders against his better judgment which results in him nearly losing his life, and the death of a young man. 

Twenty-five years later we meet Detective Superintendent Christian Dane, an ex-army man who is now a police detective. Dane has an ex-wife who has whisked his 8-year-old daughter to another country, and he is unable to visit her. The fact that he writes to her regularly but keeps the letters in a file, I found rather endearing. He also has elderly parents. But his father who is a retired vicar barely speaks to him.   

Although an experienced officer, when he is called to the brutal slaying of three petty criminals, it is the most vicious crime scene he has come across. Two of the victims are identified as the Corper twins Billy and Benny, of B&B Holdings. Known as unpleasant bits of work.  Both had been shot in their legs and heads. 

He calls in Detective Constable Hayley Cross, a talented young officer, to assist him.  But whoever the killer is he/she has left little to explain why these three were murdered. With very little forensic evidence to go on Dane is puzzled. 

As the investigation proceeds two more bodies are discovered, and a French fisherman is shot on a Dorset beach. Also, with same MO a cocaine dealer in Cambridge. Putting it slowly together Dane realises, that whoever is orchestrating this is no ordinary drug dealer. None of the people who buy their drugs from him can identify him. 

Dane is under increasing pressure to apprehend the killer. When he finally realises who the killer is he turns to his old Army commander, General Smith, for help. 

Cleverly plotted this is an intriguing mystery that I could not put down.  There is also a surprise ending I certainly didn’t see coming.  I can’t wait to read the next book in this series. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett 

Simon Dinsdale served twelve years with the British army in the 1970’s before joining Essex police in 1980. He spent 30 years in the police eventually achieving the rank of Detective Superintendent. Over his career he led over a hundred major investigations. He now writes, travels and speaks about his experiences. He lives in Essex.

'The Edge of Darkness' by Vaseem Khan

Published by Hodder and Stoughton,
22 January 2026.
ISBN 978 1 399 74785 1 (HB)

Like The City of Destruction, the previous book in this superb Malabar House series, The Edge of Darkness is set in India in 1951.  The setting is however completely different, moving from the seething metropolis of Bombay to the mountainous, jungle region of the Naga Hills District, an area in the north-east bordering with Burma (now Myanmar). Tensions are running high throughout India and the army, commanded by Colonel Shroff, has already been sent to quell resistance in the Naga area where insurgents are continuing their longstanding fight for independence. 

Inspector Persis Wadia is India’s first female detective. Highly intelligent and independently minded, her tactless approach to those in authority and ability to upset the male dominated police force by being outstandingly good at solving crimes, Persis has finally met her comeuppance.  She has been posted to the small and isolated Kohima police station in the Naga district which is a week’s journey from Bombay. On arrival Persis is billeted in the luxurious Hotel Victoria. She has only been there for a few weeks when the headless body of Mohan Sinha, the area’s governor, is discovered in his room. 

Tight security at the hotel dictates that the crime had to have been committed by somebody inside the building. Apart from Persis and Apeni Ao, the hotel’s female owner, and a couple of hotel staff, that left only the five guests staying in the hotel: Sinha’s aide John Templeton, American husband and wife missionaries Florence and Christopher Danvers, Italian journalist Maria Fontanelli, and businessman Oran Rake. 

The local, demoralized police chief, Roshan Seth, who used to be Persis’s boss in Bombay, has also been shunted off into the wilderness. He puts Persis in charge of the investigation. Apart from a keen young sub-inspector, James Angami, she has little other help.  Persis soon finds reasons to suspect all the guests. Some are not whom they profess to be, whilst others, including the murdered man, have previous history both with each other and the area and its troubles. So, was this killing politically motivated, a product of the modern, local insurgency as Colonel Shroff insists? Is the insurgency being encouraged and supported by outside agencies like the Americans and the Chinese who are following their own agendas? Or, is the killing more personal?  Are modern grievances, some possibly with roots extending back to earlier cruelties and crimes being settled? As the intrepid Persis tries to separate personal and local issues from the national picture, she manages to survive several hair-raising, life-threatening situations. 

In The Edge of Darkness Vaseem Khan combines history, humour and criminal misdemeanors with an attractive range of individual characters in a delightfully easy to read and fascinating story. Apart from the odd flutter of attraction between James and herself, Persis struggles to manage her feelings for Archie Blackfinch, an Englishman she met in Bombay. Archie had been in a coma since he was shot months previously. However, he regained consciousness just before the end of the story when he rings Persis and asks her to come back to him. Will she? Won’t she?  Can one of the most attractive and interesting female characters in today’s crime genre get herself reinstated back to Bombay? Hopefully we will find out in the next installment - book no 7 - from Malabar House.
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Reviewer Angela Crowther 

Vaseem Khan was born in London in 1973. He studied finance at the London School of Economics. He first saw an elephant lumbering down the middle of the road in 1997 when he arrived in the city of Mumbai, India to work as a management consultant. This surreal sight inspired his Baby Ganesh Agency series of 'gritty cosy crime' novels. His aim with the series is to take readers on a journey to the heart of modern India. He returned to the UK in 2006 and has since worked at University College London for the Department of Security and Crime Science. Elephants are third on his list of passions, first and second being great literature and cricket, not always in that order. His first book The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra was a Times Bestseller and an Amazon Best Debut. The are five books in the series. In his Malabar House series, there are six books. His most recent series is Q Mystery, There are two book in this this series. 

http://vaseemkhan.com 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VaseemKhanUKFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/VaseemKhanOfficial/

Angela Crowther is a retired scientist.  She has published many scientific papers but, as yet, no crime fiction.  In her spare time Angela belongs to a Handbell Ringing group, goes country dancing and enjoys listening to music, particularly the operas of Verdi and Wagner.

‘See How They Fall’ by Rachel Paris

Published by Hachette New Zealand,
12 March 2026.
ISBN: 978-1-86971867-1 (PB)

It's a truth universally acknowledged, at least in fiction, that a naïve young woman who marries into a wealthy family will eventually come a cropper. 

Ten years ago when Skye's eyes met Duncan Turner's across a crowded art gallery, she thought her ship had come in. That was before she met his autocratic father and realized that her life would never again be in her   own very talented hands. Now Sir Campbell Turner is dead, and his three sons are vying for control of the Turner millions. 

It all begins to go pear-shaped during an autumn weekend at the Turner estate. Skye wakes with the worst kind of throwing-up hangover despite not having drunk much. Then her small daughter Tilly is taken ill, rapidly deteriorates and is rushed into Intensive Care. She subsequently learns that Nina, her sister-in-law, has died after exhibiting similar symptoms. When arsenic poisoning is revealed as the cause, Skye and Duncan come under suspicion and are not allowed to see Tilly. That's when Duncan begins to behave oddly. Skye develops suspicions of her own, and enlists the help of Detective Senior Sergeant Mei O'Connor, who is in charge of the investigation into Nina's death and Tilly's poisoning. 

Mei's boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Wilson, is keen to wrap up the case as soon as possible. Soon a suspect is under arrest – but Mei is far from sure the evidence supports her guilt. From that point onwards, it's a case of two beleaguered women against the might of a powerful family and a senior policeman in line for promotion. 

Maybe it's just coincidence that the bad guys are all men, and nearly all the good ones are women, maybe not. To her credit, Rachel Paris has created a cast of widely varying characters. The three Turner brothers are quite different from each other: authoritarian Jamie, feckless Hugo, wavering Duncan.  Mei's colleague Macca is easily led, and Wilson is far too impressed by power and money. Skye is trusting at first but soon shows her core of steel against considerable odds. Mei is determined, and a firm believer in justice, even against similar odds. Ana, the only friend Skye trusts, is caring and motherly. 

The setting is Australia, alien territory to many readers, though not to the author. Place names and distances are unfamiliar, but locations like status-symbol houses, soulless police headquarters and hospitals with endless corridors are universal and well portrayed. 

It's a debut novel, but you wouldn't know it. There's variety of pace, domestic detail to leaven the tightly wrought plot, plenty of emotional undertow, and eventually the kind of spiralling into disaster that characterizes the denouement of the best crime fiction. Rachel Paris is one to watch.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Rachel Paris won the Phoenix Prize for the best manuscript in her Masters at Auckland University. She came to writing after a highly successful 20-year law career, specialising in fintech. She gained her Masters in Law at Harvard University. See How They Fall is her debut novel.

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

‘Lucien by J. R. Thornton’.

Published by Magpie Books,
19 March 2026.
ISBN: 978-1-83643-257-9 (PB)

Christopher Novotny’s father died when he was two and his mother raised him in relatively poor circumstances.  However, he had a particular aptitude for art, spending much of his childhood drawing and painting and, by the age of 10, he had won a city-wide competition despite being underage.  He was disqualified but one of the judges, Marcus, who took an interest in him and, over the next 5 years, his progress.  Then Marcus got a job at Harvard and with his assistance Christopher was able to take a place there.

Christopher arrives at Harvard and meets his room-mate, Lucien Orsini-Conti, already a member of this world of privilege.  Lucien, for reasons which are not apparent, includes the slightly-bewildered Christopher in his group, renaming him Atlas.  Atlas is drawn into a world of parties, the urgency of belonging to the right clubs, and very, very wealthy new ‘friends’.  Atlas, unsurprisingly, finds this way of life very expensive and, indeed, finds it difficult to keep up with his college work as well.  Lucien comes up with a solution that relies on Atlas’s artistic skills.  Although Atlas is not keen, he finds it difficult to stand up to Lucien and honestly, a bit of him is interested – he is of course a talented artist and a bit of him might wonder if he could really pull the scheme off.

This is a well-told story that holds the interest.  It feels familiar – a variation on the coming of age novel.  The central friendship is based on the charismatic Lucien, who is at once attractive and slightly sinister.  He’s well-established at Harvard, but what does anyone really know about him?  The story does provide one more twist for Christopher as it reaches its somewhat melancholic end.
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Reviewer: Jo Hesslewood
Other books by this author:  Beautiful Country

J. R. Thornton was born in London. He graduated from Harvard College in 2014 where he studied history, English, and Chinese. An internationally ranked junior tennis player, he competed for Harvard and on the professional circuit. He was a member of the inaugural class of Schwarzman Scholars, obtaining an M.A. from Tsinghua University in Beijing. He now lives in Italy, working for AC Milan. Lucien is his second novel.

Jo Hesslewood.  Crime fiction has been my favourite reading material since as a teenager I first spotted Agatha Christie on the library bookshelves.  For twenty-five years the commute to and from London provided plenty of reading time.  I am fortunate to live in Cambridge, where my local crime fiction book club, Crimecrackers, meets at Heffers Bookshop .  I enjoy attending crime fiction events and currently organise events for the Margery Allingham Society.