Publishing Deal - G S Locke

Is Birmingham becoming more popular as a setting for crime fiction? This April we have Lucie Whitehouse's Critical Incidents, the first of projected trilogy set in Birmingham and next year sees Neon from the pseudonymous G S Locke. Details from today's Bookseller:

Orion has scooped a debut thriller by G S Locke, about a Birmingham detective and hitwoman tracking down a serial killer.

[]It will be published by Orion Fiction in spring 2020.

The book follows “desperate detective” Matt Jackson and hitwoman Iris as they try to find the murderer who killed Jackson’s wife. The synopsis explains: “But the killer, dubbed ‘Neon’ for the way he displays his victims among elaborate, snaking neon light installations, is also on the hunt – and has both Jackson and Iris in his sights.”

Locke, the pseudonym for a Birmingham based crime writer, said: “For some time, I’ve had this powerful image in my head of a desolate detective sitting alone in a café, picking up the phone and ordering his own murder after his wife is killed by a serial killer. With that, DCI Jackson was born, and with him, Iris, a contract killer who I hope is as fierce and unrelenting a character as Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and Killing Eve’s Villanelle. What follows is a story of survival, revenge, an unorthodox investigative partnership, and a serial killer with a particular fondness for neon art.”

More Birmingham crime fiction can be found here.