BritCrime's Best Books of 2016: Author @SJIHolliday recommends...

SJI Holliday recommends:

Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts by A.K. Benedict

Maria King knows a secret London. Born blind, she knows the city by sound and touch and smell. But surgery has restored her sight - only for her to find she doesn't want it.

Jonathan Dark sees the shadowy side of the city. A DI with the Metropolitan Police, he is haunted by his failure to save a woman from the hands of a stalker. Now it seems the killer has set his sights on Maria, and is leaving her messages in the most gruesome of ways.

Tracing the source of these messages leads Maria and Jonathan to a London they never knew. Finding the truth will mean seeing a side to the city where life and death is a game played by the powerful, where everyone is lost but nothing is missing, and where all the answers are hiding, if only they listen to the whispers on the streets.

Shot through with love and loss, ghosts and grief, A K Benedict weaves a compelling mystery that will leave you looking over your shoulder and asking what lurks in the dark.

The Birdwatcher by William Shaw

Sergeant William South has always avoided investigating murder. A passionate birdwatcher and quiet man, he has few relationships and prefers it that way.

But when his only friend is found brutally beaten, South's detachment is tested. Not only is he bereft - it seems that there's a connection between the suspect and himself.

For South has a secret. He knows the kind of rage that killed his friend. He knows the kind of man who could do it. He knows, because Sergeant William South himself is a murderer.

Moving from the storm-lashed, bird-wheeling skies of the Kent Coast to the wordless war of the Troubles, The Birdwatcher is a crime novel of suspense, intelligence and powerful humanity about fathers and sons, grief and guilt and facing the darkness within.

'Grips the reader by the throat and never lets go'

Recommended by SJI Holliday, author of The Damselfly
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Giveaway! For @William1Shaw's readers: You could win a weekend in Kent

William Shaw is offering one of his readers the chance to win two nights in Dungeness on the Kent coast, which is the setting for his acclaimed book, The Birdwatcher.

You could win two bed-and-breakfast nights for one at a wonderful traditional hand-built wooden chalet, situated on the shingle beach. Hosted by Bridget and the house’s owner, local artist Paddy, you’ll have a cosy bedroom in this home, which was built around a First-Class Pullman railway carriage, right on the seaward point of this amazing promontory.

You’ll also win a signed hardback of The Birdwatcher.

For details of how to enter, visit this link: http://williamshaw.com/win-two-nights-dungeness/

A Day in the Life of British Crime Writer William Shaw #amwriting

William Shaw is the author of The Birdwatcher

Police Sergeant William South has a reason for not wanting to be on the murder investigation.

He is a murderer himself.

But the victim was his only friend; like him, a passionate birdwatcher. South is warily partnered with the strong-willed Detective Sergeant Alexandra Cupidi, newly recruited to the Kent coast from London. Together they find the body, violently beaten, forced inside a wooden chest. Only rage could kill a man like this. South knows it.

But soon - too soon - they find a suspect: Donnie Fraser, a drifter from Northern Ireland. His presence in Kent disturbs William - because he knew him as a boy. If the past is catching up with him, South wants to meet it head on. For even as he desperately investigates the connections, he knows there is no crime, however duplicitous or cruel, that can compare to the great lie of his childhood.

Moving from the storm-lashed, bird-wheeling skies of the Kent Coast to the wordless war of the Troubles, The Birdwatcher is a crime novel of suspense, intelligence and powerful humanity about fathers and sons, grief and guilt and facing the darkness within.

To see how the author spends his days, please see the post below from the BritCrime Facebook page.



Twitter: @William1Shaw
Get The Birdwatcher from Amazon

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Introducing British crime writer William Shaw

William Shaw photo

© Ellen Shaw

The New York Times has called William Shaw’s trilogy of detective books set in late sixties London “an elegy for an entire alienated generation.”

Featuring DS Cathal Breen and the brash young constable Helen Tozer, they are set against the cultural and political revolution of the times. A Song from Dead Lips was picked by Time Out as one of the crime books of 2013; The Daily Mail hailed A House of Knives as “a distinctive British crime drama, which benefits from a clear moral sense”.

The third book in the series, A Book of Scars, was picked by The Sunday Times as their Crime Book of the Month, and subsequently as one of the picks of the year.

A standalone novel, The Birdwatcher, set in Kent and Northern Ireland, is released in 2016. CJ Sansom called it: "his best so far".
 
Before becoming a crime writer, William Shaw was an award-winning music journalist and the author of several non-fiction books including Westsiders: Stories of the Boys in the Hood, about a year spent with the young men of South Central Los Angeles, and A Superhero For Hire, a compilation of columns in the Observer Magazine.

William Shaw's Books on Amazon
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/williamshawwriter/
Twitter: @William1Shaw
Website: http://williamshaw.com/