And by that, I mean that I’ll be giving you all a quick rundown on the story so far. Just a quick reminder of what’s already occurred, if you like, Heck’s past investigations in chronological order etc.
Before we do any of that, I also want to mention again my new publishers, Thomas & Mercer, whom I finally hooked up with in person at the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate last week. I’ll also, if you stick with today’s column to the end, be posting a few more blurbs, connecting you to novels, anthologies and such, which I've recently read and enjoyed.
Harrogate
For those who don’t know about this annual summer knees-up, it’s a huge if very relaxed occasion, crime and thriller writers from all over the world, plus agents, editors, publishers and the like, not to mention bloggers and readers, gathering at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, to compare notes, drink beer, swap stories, drink beer, attend panels, presentations and launches, drink beer, buy lots of books, drink beer, enjoy each others’ company, and drink beer. I think you get the general idea.
(If you don’t, check out this image of Buddy chilling out in the Old Swan garden. This should give you a rough idea how nicely laid-back it is).
Anyway, the usual splendiferous time was had by all. But from my POV, it was particularly fun this year as at last I got the chance to sit down and chat with the latest bunch of high-powered publishing people who’ve finally decided to take a punt on my writing.
In truth, you cannot overstate this.
As an author - at least, from my perspective - there are two things about this business that matter more than anything else.
a) Producing the best work you can in the time available.
b) Producing a piece of work that gets out there into the world and is read by many.
Every writer, of course, is the centre of his or her own universe. But even if you weren’t that, if you manage to create something you really consider to be special, you’re desperate for it to reach as wide a readership as possible. So, you can’t help but be absolutely delighted when a mass-market publisher, with all that financial muscle to promote and publicise, signs you up.
I’m very fortunate as for most my career I’ve been in the hands of big hitters: HarperCollins (where the Heck books began), Orion (for whom I wrote two stand-alones,
ONE EYE OPEN and
NEVER SEEN AGAIN) and Thomas & Mercer (for whom I have another stand-alone due out next year,
DEATH LIST, which is slated for publication in spring).
Not everyone has happy stories to tell about working in the mass-market, but my experience thus far has been almost exclusively good, and I can’t stress enough how smooth a journey through the Thomas & Mercer process
DEATH LIST has so far had. I’m very happy to be working with the good people of T&M, who so far have been very accommodating to all my thoughts and ideas.
I don’t want to talk too much about
DEATH LIST at this stage. It’s a few months off yet, and the big news on my front at present concerns
ROGUE. But I would say that I gain as much out of writing individual, free-standing thrillers as I do adding to the Mark Heckenburg canon, so, with any luck, my future path will now involve plenty of both.
Anyway, as promised ...
HECK: THE STORY SO FAR
(in chronological order)
A WANTED MAN (short story, published March 2015) Our first visit to Mark Heckenburg’s police career. It’s the early days, and Heck is still a uniformed copper, serving in Salford, Manchester. Frustrated by the mundane nature of his work, unhappy with the situation at home, where his family are now estranged from him due to his joining the police, and irritated with many of his colleagues, particularly his supervisors, whom he finds to be uninspiring leaders, he dreams of better things. Then, while on a solo mobile patrol late at night, he gets a sniff of the local housebreaker and rapist known as the Spider because of his ability to climb walls and enter premises through the narrowest of gaps. Heck could call it in, but he’s had enough of the bosses at present. Instead, he determines to catch this goon on his own. That won’t just raise his standing in the job, it will finally make him feel that he’s at last making a difference. The problem is that the Spider is elusive, and the dingy, rain-soaked rooftops of Manchester will prove a perilous hunting ground.
BRIGHTLY SHONE THE MOON THAT NIGHT (novella, published December 2017) It’s a very snowy Christmas Eve, and Heck, having reassigned to the Met Police and now a detective constable working CID in Bethnal Green, has agreed to man the office alone while everyone else goes home for the holiday. There isn’t much to do. It’s all paperwork, but outside the snow is falling heavily, blanketing the East End, creating problems everywhere. This doesn’t stop Gemma Piper, a fellow DC and someone Heck has become amorous with, popping in to see him while she’s off-duty, dressed as a sexy Santa. They are enjoying each other’s company, when Heck gets a phone call from Jenny Askew, the wife of a bank robber he sent to prison for 17 years. She has just been terrified by a very weird group of carol singers, who tried to gain access to her house. When Heck looks into it, another blagger’s wife has also had a visit, though in her case she’s been tortured and murdered. Convinced that someone is hunting the loot from the robbery, none of which has yet been recovered, Heck realises that several women dotted around London are now in extreme danger. But the blizzard is severe, the snowfall so heavy that all support units are impeded, and he and Gemma must track this bunch of killers on their own, before anyone else falls prey to them.
DEATH’S DOOR (novella, published June 2018) Heck and Gemma’s relationship is feeling the strain. They love each other and have even set up home together in Finsbury Park, but Gemma is constantly alarmed and annoyed by the risks Heck takes to get the job done, while Heck himself is feeling peeved that Gemma has been earmarked for higher things. They are still only detective constables, but she has now caught the eye of various promotion boards. However, Heck is distracted from these problems when a woman living alone in Bethnal Green complains that she has a peeping Tom, an unknown man who regularly comes to her house at night and looks in through the windows. It doesn’t initially seem serious, but then Heck makes enquiries and finds that, ten years previously, a similar complaint was made by a woman living alone at the same house, and was ignored – and that woman was later murdered, a case that remains unsolved to this day. Is this some monstrous coincidence or is history about to repeat itself in the most macabre way. Heck suspects the latter, and is determined to be there to stop it.
STALKERS (novel, published February 2013) Heck is now a detective sergeant, working within the Serial Crimes Unit, which is part of the National Crime Group. He had no idea when he applied for this post that ex-girlfriend Gemma, whom he hadn’t seen for several years, was now the detective superintendent in charge of SCU. They respect each other professionally, but that’s where it ends. Gemma, still the ultimate straight bat, mistrusts what she considers to be Heck’s cowboy approach to policing and is not even happy about the huge numbers of hours he puts in, because she knows this stems from his lonely private life and is concerned that it isn’t healthy. At present, Heck is attempting to connect 38 unexplained disappearances of professional women up and down the country. National Crime Group director, Jim Laycock, isn’t persuaded by Heck’s meticulously compiled comparative case analysis and insists that he take some leave. Gemma, who has a different view, forces Heck to take 10 weeks off but tacitly approves his continuing to investigate while he’s on leave. The only problem here is that it leaves him minus backup and resources, which isn’t the best position to be in as he slowly closes on a shadowy syndicate who even within criminal circles are a source of fear and concern: the Nice Guys Club.
SACRIFICE (novel, published July 2013) Britain is rocked by a series of apparent ‘calendar killings,’ the murders all occurring on and seemingly appropriate to special feast days. A tramp walled into a chimney on Christmas Eve. A courting couple pinned together through their respective hearts by a single arrow on Valentine’s Day, etc. The Serial Crimes Unit is allocated the case, with Gemma as SIO, but when there are three roadside crucifixions on Good Friday, all hell lets loose. The pressure on the investigation team increases tenfold, even Heck and Gemma struggling to deal with it. When the press dub the maniac ‘the Desecrator’ and point out that his targets are selected randomly – they could literally be anyone and could be abducted at any time of day – the powers-that-be demand a shakeup. They want new investigators and a new plan. But while Gemma is taking all this heat on herself, Heck is making headway. To start with, there has to be more than one killer. Perhaps there’s a whole cadre of them. But as he pieces a trail of hard-won clues together, it leads, incredibly, to a public school in the leafy heart of England.
THE KILLING CLUB (novel, published May 2014) When several murders of wealthy men occur in different locations around England, the MO always different, they aren’t initially linked. But when Heck identifies the victims as suspected clients of the Nice Guys Club, who, though they’ve been closed down in Britain, are still under investigation overseas, it becomes apparent that Nice Guys operatives who escaped the initial sweep have now returned to the UK and are looking to silence potential witnesses. A massive investigation now confronts the Serial Crimes Unit, which is complicated all the more when Nice Guys assassins come after Heck himself. After the events of
STALKERS, he’d be the most damaging witness who could possibly take the stand, and there is no way that this deadliest of crime syndicates can allow that to happen. To Heck’s fury, Gemma responds by having him taken into protective custody, and when he breaks out of it, he himself becomes a fugitive.
DEAD MAN WALKING (novel, published November 2014) Heck and Gemma are no longer on speaking terms after what Heck considers to be her betrayal of him during
THE KILLING CLUB. As such, and as part of a new nationwide initiative to embed experienced detectives in rural areas, Heck has sought reassignment away from the National Crime Group, to the Cumbria Police, specifically in the mountainous region of the Langdale Fells. Resources are thin on the ground here, but there is plenty of crime, and Heck keeps busy. But then suddenly, two female hikers are brutally attacked, an act of unprovoked lethality, which has all the hallmarks of the Stranger, a serial killer who many years earlier terrorised Devon and was supposedly put out of action when Gemma Piper, then a mere detective constable working as an undercover decoy, shot and, as far as she’s aware, mortally wounded him. As a terrible winter fog descends on the Lake District’s higher peaks, completely cloaking the picturesque but isolated village where Heck is based, Gemma travels north, just in time for a whole new spree of murders to commence, a ruthless and very cruel individual attacking secluded settlements, remote farmhouses and the like, and anyone at all, male or female, whom he captures alone on the high moors. Could it really be the Stranger? Isn’t he supposed to be dead? Heck and Gemma must join forces to confront him, but as the fog thickens and resources are stretched, they feel increasingly cut off from the police network. The killer meanwhile, whether he’s the old one returned or an eager copycat, launches one murderous attack after another, with no one ever seeing or hearing him ... until it’s too late.
HUNTED (novel, published May 2015) His relationship with Gemma partly patched up, though still far from perfect, Heck returns to the Serial Crimes Unit, where Gemma requests that he look into a curious case down in Surrey. A wealthy businessman has suffered a series of unlikely accidents, one of which has finally been the death of him. Gemma doesn’t consider this an SCU case. Surrey CID are already on it, but as a favour to her mother, who was a good friend of the deceased, she asks Heck to go and lend a hand. He does so, though he isn’t received warmly by the investigating officer, Detective Constable Gail Honeyford. Honeyford is single-minded and ambitious, never likes being mansplained to and is particularly firm that she doesn’t need any help. However, this latter changes when the case expands, Heck picking out other fatal accidents across the Home Counties, which might well have been engineered by someone. They can scarcely believe that they could have a ‘prankster killer’ on their hands, who likes to play huge practical jokes on random targets ... so huge that they nearly always prove fatal. The case grows exponentially as more and more incredibly inventive and horrific ‘accidents’ are added to the list. But it’s an increasingly confusing picture, Heck and Gail’s area of interest ranging from the South London badlands, where a local gang has been terrorising publicans with a series of late-night robberies, to the high society of Surrey’s land-owning elite. It’s also a concern when evidence emerges that the killers know all they need to about the cops pursuing them, and are planning some nasty surprises for them as well.
KILLER INSTINCT (novella, due for publication October 2024) Heck visits prison to interview Dick Nesbit, an old lag about to go down for aggravated burglary. Nesbit can’t stand the thought of facing hard time and wants to make a deal. In return for some kind of amnesty, he offers an address where he recently broke in and saw photographs all over the basement walls depicting brutal murder scenes, some of which sound as if they might match unsolved crimes in the east of England. A police visit to the premises, warrant in hand, reveals no trace of any such images, but Heck is increasingly convinced that the death scenes described to him now match a range of open murder cases across the UK. The problem, at least from Gemma’s POV, is that none of these are a fit for each other; each case is currently in the hands of a different investigation team because there is no sign of a common MO. Heck wonders if this lack of MO may be the MO itself, but it seems even more unlikely given that his chief suspect is Ken Kozowski, a respected landscape photographer with no criminal record whatsoever. When Heck undertakes a one-man obbo, it feels on the surface like a lost cause, but there is something about this guy, Kozowski. Is he perhaps a bit too squeaky clean?
ASHES TO ASHES (novel, published April 2017)
John Sagan is an urbane everyman, who, to look at him, wouldn’t say boo to a goose. But in reality he’s a torturer-for-hire, working mostly for the underworld. He travels the country taking his ‘Toybox’ with him. It looks like an ordinary caravan, but in fact it’s a mobile, soundproofed torture chamber. At least, this is what the gossip mongers say. The problem Heck has is that he can’t prove any of it and can’t even lay hands on the Toybox. In the meantime, SCU are diverted north to deal with a madman called the Incinerator, who kills his victims with a homemade flamethrower. Heck doesn’t particularly want to go as the epicentre of the crimewave is Bradburn, Lancashire, the hometown he left so many years ago and has no desire to revisit. But then he works out that the Incinerator might actually be a hitman in an underworld war, the opposite side of which have now taken on their own enforcer, the recently vanished Sagan. It’s a no-brainer. Heck’s going up there and he’s getting involved.
KISS OF DEATH (novel, published August 2018)
With the Serial Crimes Unit under threat due to ongoing police cuts, Gemma Piper, to avoid the disbandment of her department, joins forces with another team hanging by a thread, the Cold Case Squad, who are under the command of an old mentor, Detective Chief Superintendent Gwen Straker, to undertake Operation Sledgehammer. In this dedicated but far-reaching enquiry, a number of very dangerous fugitives still believed to be at large in the UK have been targeted for detection and arrest. Heck, now with a new partner, Gail Honeyford, who has recently joined SCU, is sent to Humberside on the trail of a career bank robber who is also wanted for a double-murder. Progress is steady, until Heck obtains a pen-drive containing footage apparently showing their target fighting for his life in some kind of vicious gladiatorial combat. Heck is stunned. Could these very violent and dangerous offenders all have disappeared recently because they have been abducted and, for someone’s entertainment, been forced to fight each other to the death? It seems impossible. Who would have the wherewithal to mount such an operation? And why would they do it? There must be more to this than mere vigilantism. Gemma and Gwen are uneasy with the whole thing but trust their best detectives’ instincts. Heck and Gail thus travel back to London, the trail leading them into a world of snuf movies, contract killings and ultra high-level organised crime.
ROGUE (novel, due for publication October 2024)
When Heck miraculously survives a mass shooting at the Ace of Diamonds pub in North London, during which 26 of his fellow police officers are slaughtered, he becomes a suspect. None of those supervisors who know him believe he could really be involved, but nevertheless, he is put under surveillance. Heck himself emerged from the massacre unscathed, but with one important piece of evidence in hand, which he is certain will lead him to the shooters, an anonymous two-man hit team who no one even saw coming. However, he won’t share this clue with the official investigation team. He is too twisted up with hatred and a burning desire for revenge. Armed only with this single but vital clue, he evades the police cordon that has been placed around him, and heads north through the desolate landscape of the British winter. En route, he puts more and more clues together, slowly closing the distance between himself and the murderers. He also acquires an illegal firearm. Because things have gone too far for Mark Heckenburg. Mowing down his friends with automatic gunfire. Shooting the woman he loves. Arrest and conviction isn’t good enough for offenders like these. Some crimes are simply too heinous, and some criminals simply deserve to die. This time, Heck’s not just going to be the cop, he’s going to be judge and executioner too. But what he hasn’t allowed for is that the killers know he is coming. They are very ready for him, and have placed some truly nasty obstacles in his path.
THRILLERS, CHILLERS, SHOCKERS AND KILLERS
Recent works of dark fiction that I have read, thoroughly enjoyed and now heartily recommend.
PAPER GHOSTS by Julia Heaberlin (2018)
A Texas woman abducts an elderly man and, determined to prove him the serial killer responsible for her sister’s disappearance, takes him on a hellish road trip. Raw, creepy travelogue of a crime thriller. Lacking in action, but captivatingly written in the Southern Noir tradition, and constantly posing the question: is he or isn’t he?
CRISSCROSS by F Paul Wilson (2004)
Another episode in Wilson’s Adversary Cycle, Repairman Jack this time infiltrating the Dormentalist Temple, a NY-based cult hellbent on creating a worldwide catastrophe. Slickly written and hugely clever, and featuring the usual array of complex, high-stakes predicaments. Energised and enthralling. There are few do ‘supernatural horror meets hardcase thriller’ as well as Mr Wilson.
THE RULE OF THREE by Sam Ripley (2024)
Disparate characters investigate a frightening urban legend and uncover a possible series of murders. Exceptionally well-written mystery from Tom Wood (writing as Ripley), a deep dive into the world of urban myths and troubled minds, and a constant sense of impending doom. Massively intriguing and packed with twists and turns you genuinely didn’t see coming. Classy stuff indeed.
DEEP STORM by Lincoln Child (2011)
A doctor joins a top-secret drilling gig on the Atlantic floor, only to learn that the prize below the seabed is a thing of colossal power and mass terror. Withstand the avalanche of scientific detail, and there’s much to enjoy in this deep ocean sci-fi thriller. The unique environment is vividly captured, the atmosphere taut, the basic concept as high they come. It’s got Hollywood written all over it.
WHOSE LITTLE GIRL ARE YOU? by David Craig (1974)
When London gangsters abduct a security chief’s family, to force him to assist with a major heist, a drunken ex-cop determines to foil them. Gritty slice of 1970s Noir, competently if not prettily written, thin on characterisation and filled with painful scenes of alcoholism, and yet it remains an absorbing page-turner. Its moral ambiguity and tough, sleazy tone strike a grimly authentic note.
STARVE ACRE by Andrew Michael Hurley (2020)
A husband and wife inherit a barren stretch of Yorkshire countryside, only to learn the hard way that this has always been ‘a bad place’. Ultra subtle psychological/supernatural chiller, eloquently written and deeply evocative of the quiet woods and high dales. Think MR James, think ‘70s TV terror (only with an extra-horrific finale). Should sit comfortably among the folk horror classics.
MOOD SWINGS by Dave Jeffery (2024)The Halloween dinner for two that descends into nightmarish horror. Life and death in the suburbs as irrational fear becomes a national pandemic. The mortician with a talent for repairing the dead, but also an urge to collect them. Plus, other thought-provokingly gruesome treats. A bunch of short, sharp shockers, expertly and concisely written, all delving deep into our everyday fears and phobias.
