Today The Quiet Kill is published! It’s my 23rd book and the start of a brand-new crime thriller series featuring Detective Jamie Day. It’s set in 1980s London, and it’s also the first time I’ve written a male lead, which has been an interesting challenge.
Looking back, I feel like I almost didn’t make it here.
The Quiet Kill started out very differently. It began as the story of Joanna, a young homeless woman squatting in a house in London, whose life is turned upside down when a dead body appears in what had previously been an empty house. I’d had the spark of this idea a few months earlier, and for the first few chapters Joanna had an interesting story to tell. But around chapter ten the problems began, and by chapter twenty it was clear the story wasn’t working.
The stakes were high for Joanna, but only while she remained hidden in the house. For the story to move forward, something had to change.
Then I wrote the scene where Jamie, a rookie police officer, arrives at a crime scene with his older colleague, Harry. Suddenly, the story came alive and all the pieces began to fall into place. Joanna became a much smaller part of what had grown into a far bigger story.
By the time I finished The Quiet Kill, I’d fallen in love with this new team of police officers. When we recorded the audiobook, our narrator, Nathaniel Priestley, brought the characters to life in ways I hadn’t imagined. Then almost everyone who read an advance copy of the book wanted more.
So, completely without planning, I now find myself writing a third crime thriller series!
Jamie Day is probably the character I've written who is most like me. Like me, he comes from Lowestoft, a small town on the east coast of England.
When I moved to London at 22, it was a completely overwhelming experience, and it has been fun to revisit that time in my life and weave some of those experiences into Jamie's story.
I've already started writing the second book in the series, The Burning Lie, which will be published in March next year, hot on the heels of The Quiet Kill.
But for now, I hope you enjoy The Quiet Kill and meeting a brand-new detective. It’s out now in ebook, print and audiobook. You can get your copy here: https://geni.us/TheQuietKill
