Author:Charlie Newton
Patti Black is the most decorated cop in Chicago; a ghetto street officer, she redefines the word badass. But the steel-plated exterior she shows to the world - solitary, friendless, loveless - hides the hideous traumas of her past. As an orphaned child, she was horribly sexually abused by her foster parents, and the torments of the past are only barely contained by her meticulously maintained tough-guy persona.
When a serious of seemingly unrelated cases - a drug bust gone bad, a mayoral assassination attempt, the abduction and murder of a state attorney, a long-hidden body walled up in a tenement basement - all point in her direction, she comes to the horrified realization that her past is no longer staying in its deeply suppressed place. It's back and hunting her down...
A powerhouse debut. Packed with nonstop action and searing emotion, written in blistering prose, Calument City marks Charlie Newton as a new force in suspense fiction.
—— Jeff Abbott, author of PanicA searing debut.
—— Publishers WeeklyThe best cop noir for years.
—— LEE CHILDIntense and explosive; destined to become a cult classic.
—— Chicago TribuneUnquestionably our best thriller writer
—— Graham GreeneThe source on which we all draw
—— John le CarréWhether you are an aficionado of fin-de-siècle Europe, compelling crime fiction or strong characterisation, Darkness Rising delivers healthy doses of all three
—— Expressa thoroughly compelling piece of work
—— Mail on Sundayoutstanding
—— Sunday TimesA most enjoyable read and, as usual, Vienna sparkles with atmosphere
—— The TimesDon Winslow is the kind of cult writer who is so good you almost want to keep him to yourself
—— Ian RankinA fiction whose effect on the reader is almost as addictive as the slimming sweets on which Eugene becomes so disturbingly dependent
—— Sunday TelegraphRuth Rendell's sense of place and disdain for her characters elevates a sordid case of arson into an artful exploration of sinister self-delusion
—— Books of the Year, Evening StandardShe has made the city her own, and writes with both knowledge and compassion about its streets and buildings, its transport and its shops - and above all about its inhabitants ... As ever Rendell writes with wry and witty authority ... It's intelligent stuff, and very readable
—— SpectatorRendell is marvellous at psychological tension, and the suspicion that these ways will be sinister is what hooks the reader. Setting out her cast with conviction, she unrolls their lives at a stately, ominous pace
—— The Sunday TimesPsychologically acute and extremely disturbing, Ruth Rendell's work is outstanding
—— The TimesRendell has a Dickensian empathy, informed by a prodigious love of London life. Her account, bursting with colour and vitality, is a treat to read
—— The Independent