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In a True Light

William Heinemann, 2001

In A True Light is set in London, New York and Northern Tuscany at the present time and in the late 1950s. A crime novel which centres around the character of Sloane, a painter-turned-forger who first appeared in Still Water, it is also a novel about painting and painters, about identity and belonging, and accepting responsibility for ourselves and others. Oh, and there’s some jazz thrown in.

“John Harvey writes the way we all wish we could write. Elegaic and eloquent, his stories filled with the blood of true character. In In a True Light he is at his very best. It’s a crime story, sure, but it’s also a larger story about redemption and consequences set to the beat of the human heart.”
Michael Connelly

John Harvey reads Monk at the Five Spot from In A true Light

 

Gone to Ground

William Heinemann, 2007

Set in Cambridge and the surrounding Fens, as well as the more familiar landscape of Nottinghamshire, Gone to Ground features DI Will Grayson and DS Helen Walker, who first appeared in the short story, “Snow, Snow, Snow”. When their investigation into the murder of Stephen Bryan, a film historian and academic, falters, Bryan’s radio journalist sister takes it upon herself to uncover what really happened, and soon all three are caught up in a morass of corrupt business practices, family secrets and fifties film noir.

“John Harvey’s new novel is immaculately plotted, and constructed with care and skill.  … The range of characters and settings is large, and Harvey’s touch is sure. The female characters are especially good, from the victim’s touching mother to the trash actress great-niece of the film star. All the threads are held in perfect balance until the very end of the narrative …”
Heather O’Donogue, Times Literary Supplement

Far Cry

WilliamHeinemann, 2009

Ruth and Simon Pierce’s rare romantic break is shattered by devastating news: their daughter, Heather, on holiday in Cornwall with her best friend’s family, has disappeared. The loss is more than they, or their marriage, can bear and they separate. Ruth slowly builds a new life for herself, remarries, and has a second daughter, Beatrice – and then the unthinkable happens, Beatrice herself goes missing. While DI Will Grayson leads the search for Beatrice in the Cambridgeshire Fens, DS Helen Walker reexamines what happened to Heather years before.

“What price the rights of suspects when the safety of children is at stake? How much latitude should parents allow their offspring? And how does one survive the abduction and sexual abuse of a child? That Harvey can deal with such weighty issues responsibly within a page-turning crime entertainment is a measure of his mastery.”
Barry Forshaw, The Independent

Read Barry Forshaw’s review here.

or Michael Carlson’s review here.

Read Marilyn Stasio’s Review here

Good Bait

William Heinemann 2012

When a seventeen-year-old Moldovan boy is found dead on Hampstead Heath, the case falls to DCI Karen Shields and her overstretched Homicide & Serious Crime team. Karen knows she needs a result. What she doesn’t know is that her new case is tied inextricably to a much larger web of gang warfare and organised crime which infiltrates almost every aspect of London society, from the back streets and high-rises of Tottenham to the multimillion-pound hideaways of the new international entrepreneurs.

Several hundred miles away in Cornwall, DI Trevor Cordon is stirred from his day-to-day duties by another tragic London fatality. Travelling to the capital, determined to establish the cause of death and trace the deceased’s daughter – an old acquaintance from Penzance – Cordon becomes entangled in a lethally complex situation of his own. A situation much closer to Karen’s case then either of them can imagine…

Brilliantly plotted and filled with rich, subtle characters, John Harvey’s latest novel reveals him once again as a masterful writer with his finger firmly on the pulse of twenty-first-century crime.

‘John Harvey is not just a fine crime novelist but a fine writer, and an adornment to his chosen genre. I devoured Good Bait in a day, and defy any reader to do otherwise. Great Stuff.’
John Connolly

‘Intricate, character-driven plotting and a large canvas full of telling detail lift this above the average police procedural.’
Laura Wilson, The Guardian

”Good Bait’ proves that John Harvey is always prepared to tackle something new and ambitious.’
Barry Forshaw, The Independent

‘Nearly three years after his last novel,  John Harvey returns in resounding form … Terrific plot and, in Karen Shields, a splendid new heroine.’
Marcel Berlins, The Times

‘Just when you thought that Harvey couldn’t get any better, up he pops with yet another brilliantly constructed, coolly written, chillingly sharp and utterly contemporary procedural.’
Henry Sutton, Daily Mirror