A former Customs and Police Officer, Andrew Hill’s first book in a crime series set in the New Forest, where he lived for 30 years, will be published in Spring 2022. An avid reader across the crime genre and regular at crime writing festivals, he now lives in West Sussex and works in property.
Disgraced ex-detective Ray Mason is banged up in the Vulnerable Prisoners wing of a ‘Category A’ prison for murder. Someone wants him dead; so-much-so that they’ll post a £500,000 bounty on his head and engineer a riot to get to him.
When they miss their opportunity, the injured Mason is being taken to a nearby hospital. But, on the way, the transport is intercepted and Mason abducted.
At first, he believes that he’s been taken to be killed. But his kidnappers have other plans for him.
Alastair Sheridan is a high-flying politician and inline to be his Party’s next leader. Sheridan has the dirt on anyone he needs to climb the greasy political pole and he’s determined to get to the top. Nothing will stop him, and Sheridan is a killer.
When Ray’s abductors reveal that they aren’t going to execute him, but that they need him for a job, his world is turned upside down. They want him to kill Alastair Sheridan and they provide him with the motivation via the murder of thirteen-year-old Dana Brennan, a case that Ray had been involved in.
When the ‘hit’ on Sheridan goes pear-shaped, Ray knows that he has only one person to turn to. His former colleague and lover, ex-copper Tina Boyd.
With Ray now the target of both the Police and a hired Assassin called The Wraith, Kernick delivers to the reader a seat of the pants, white knuckle ride of a story.
It’s always a pleasure to pick up the latest from Simon Kernick and once again he has delivered an exhilarating, tightly plotted and well-crafted tale. The phrase ‘page turner’ is sometimes overused, but never in this author’s case.
This is a book you will not want to put down. An ex-detective seeking redemption and a corrupt, murderous politician.
What’s not to like?
A firecracker of a read.
