Crime novels can encourage conversation, discussion, debate, even regeneration!
Dreda Say Mitchell’s first novel bursts in on the vibrance and horror of the way gangs impinge on the lives of families and their children in the East End of London.
Running Hot, ISBN 9781904559092, Maia Press is about a crime that offers a dangerous opportunity for escape and a new life.
In Running Hot, Elijah ‘Schoolboy’ Campbell needs to be out of Hackney in a week’s time but he needs money to get there. A dead body presents him with that opportunity but there are others who want what Schoolboy has taken and they’re prepared to go to any lengths to get what they want.
The escape hatch is open for 7 days. 7 days to exchange the mobile for cash, to cut the line rental to the Faces tracking his every move. A week to get out of a world where bling and ringtones are the accessories of life and death.
The phrase ‘running hot’ is urban slang tied into slave history where as a slave you could be running hot and then, just as you were about to escape you realise that you’ve been played, you haven’t got away, you’ve been watched all along.
It’s about freedom.
Killer Tune ISBN 9780340937099 Published Mar 2008
Blood and Fire:
The rhythm of life
is a powerful beat.
Lord Tribulation: on the way up
It’s now and then: Police and Thieves
The summer of 76
with a twist
Classroom kiss, class clash
Living, Living for the City
Culture growing
People Get Ready
Revolt against bigotry
Part-time full time:
Who Killed Emmett Till?
Slivers of then pierce the skin
of the King
as he is
dying
Many Rivers
Lord Tribulation’s past
Like a female detective
Materialises…
Geezer Girls ISBN: 9780340937112 Published 2009
Prison inmate: ‘This is the book that taught me to read’
10 years ago…
Fifteen-year-old Jade Flynn and three other girls are forced to work for the Geezer from the fourth floor of St. Nicholas care home. Dealing in drugs, guns and money until one day something so bad happened that the girls stole enough to make a new life and ran.
10 years later…
Jackie Jarvis is getting married. She invites her three friends to be her maids of honour. But someone else turns up as well – The Geezer who knows who they really are.
He tells them he’ll kill them for what they did or they can do one final job for him and return to their respectable lives. Geezer Girls again.
Downward spiral, or justice?
Gangster Girl, 2010, Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-340-99320-0
An Amazon Top 10 Action & Adventure Bestseller
Daisy Sullivan: a good girl from a bad family. She never knew her mum, her dad a gangster who dies a very violent death.
She vows to move on and does until everything blows up: her mum blasts back into her life and Daisy finds out that missing mum is the head of an underworld family and runs a ring of prostitutes.
Soon she is drawn into a bank robbery but this is no ordinary robbery.
Hit Girls, Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-340-99322-4 Published 2011
When ten year old twins are murdered outside their school, their grandfather knows that the man arrested isn’t responsible. Kenny’s a villain and so is his son Stanley Lewis but you can’t fool a villain and Kenny wants the truth.
Jackie, Anna, Roxy and Ollie can get to that truth. The women can get to places where even Kenny can’t reach.
It’s when they start to get to unravel that truth that they begin to realise that someone’s on to them too…
Death Trap ISBN: 9781444789461 Publication date: 08 Oct 2015
When Nikki Bell witnesses the violent murder of two members of her family and their cleaner, she runs, lucky to be alive. DI Rio Wray is on the case and realises that this is no random attack. The killers are targetting wealthy families and know Nikki got away. How can the two women stay safe and get to the killers before the killers get to them?
Snatched ISBN: 9781473617971 Publication date: 27 Aug 2015
Undercover cop Mac becomes a cold case desk cop, post traumatic stress and a crippling past troubling him until he’s woken up to a son he never knew existed and Mac knows that to protect him he has to face his demons. His only course is to go back and square up to his greatest enemy.
Vendetta ISBN: 9781444789430 Nov 2014
Mac wakes to find the hotel room he’s been sleeping in has been turned upside down and his lover is dead in the bath. With a crippling headache and no memory of the previous 24 hours, it doesn’t take him long to run.
Did he do it? He’s not sure. Until he knows, he’s on the run.
Chasing him is D I Rio Wray, paths crossing, uncrossing and double crossing.
Only Mac knows he’s been living a double life
Blood Sister ISBN: 9781473625662 Publication date: 11 Aug 2016 Set on the Ocean Estate, Mile End, London where Dreda Say Mitchell grew up.
Dreda Say Mitchell and Kimberley Chambers standing on the Mile End Estate (Essex Lane Estate in the Blood Sister, Blood Mother, Blood Daughter series). Mile End used to be the poorest borough in London, now regenerated.
‘A gripping and thrilling read by a wonderful lady and fab author’ Kimberley Chambers
“There are two ways out of Essex Lane Estate, better known as The Devil. You make good, or you turn bad”.
The story takes the form of three books following Babs and her two daughters Jen and Tiffany over 10 years 1993-2003.
Tiff is a short hair cut, trouser girl, she wants out of the Essex Lane Estate known to the locals as the Devil. Jen is looking for a good guy and a good job. Tiff, though, her younger sister, is chancing it, running around for a gangster and is heading for trouble….
Dee is going to the top regardless and earmarks a gangster to help her rise. When Tiff crosses paths with Dee, the power of what’s hidden in the the Devil plays out. Jen and Tiff have a lot to learn….On the outside, or inside, is Babs...
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