Black Summer

'A brutal and thrilling page-turner' The Sun 'Compelling' Heat 'The best pure mystery plot of the year'Morning Star 'Gleefully gory and witty, with a terrific sense of place'Sunday Mirror ______________________ After The Puppet Show, a new storm is coming . . . Jared Keaton, chef to the stars. Charming. Charismatic. Psychopath . . . He's currently serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of his daughter, Elizabeth. Her body was never found and Keaton was convicted largely on the testimony of Detective Sergeant Washington Poe. So when a young woman staggers into a remote police station with irrefutable evidence that she is Elizabeth Keaton, Poe finds himself on the wrong end of an investigation, one that could cost him much more than his career. Helped by the only person he trusts, the brilliant but socially awkward Tilly Bradshaw, Poe races to answer the only question that matters: how can someone be both dead and alive at the same time? And then Elizabeth goes missing again - and all paths of investigation lead back to Poe. The gripping new thriller in the Washington Poe series from M. W. Craven, winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award for best crime novel of 2019. *Longlisted for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger 2020* Praise for MIKE CRAVEN 'Dark, sharp and compelling' PETER JAMES 'Fantastic' MARTINA COLE 'Britain's answer to Harry Bosch' MATT HILTON 'A powerful thriller from an explosive new talent' DAVID MARK 'Truly mind-blowing' A. A. Dhand 'A book thatshines with tension, wit and invention' William Shaw 'Washington Poe - a rising giant in detective fiction' Alison Bruce 'A twisty thriller with a killer plot Ed James 'I loved this book!' Jo Jakeman 'One of the best British crime novels I've read in a long time . . . Simply an unputdownable page-turner' Nick Oldham 'Grabs you from the very first page. A dark and brilliantly twisted crime thriller' Colin Falconer 'Dark and twisted in all the right places' Robert Scragg 'In Tilly and Poe, MW Craven has created a stand-out duo who are two of the most compelling characters in crime fiction in recent years' Fiona Cummins 'Dark, thrilling and unputdownable' Victoria Selman

M. W. Craven was born in Carlisle but grew up in Newcastle, returning after 31 years to take up a probation officer position in Whitehaven, eventually working his way up to chief officer grade. Sixteen years later he took the plunge, accepted redundancy and became a full-time author. He now has entirely different motivations for trying to get inside the minds of criminals. His first novel featuring Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw, The Puppet Show, was published by Constable to huge acclaim, and it has since won the CWA Gold Dagger Award and been shortlisted for the Amazon Publishing Readers' Awards: Best Crime Novel, the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award and the Dead Good Reader Awards. M. W. Craven lives in Carlisle with his wife, Joanne. When he isn't out with his springer spaniel, or talking nonsense in the pub, he can usually be found at punk gigs and writing festivals up and down the country.