Simon Beckett and his Stone Bruises

Today’s guest blog is by Simon Beckett.  He has worked as a freelance journalist, writing for national newspapers and color supplements.  He is the author of four international bestselling crime thrillers featuring his forensic anthropologist hero, Dr David Hunter: The Chemistry of Death, Written in Bone, Whispers of the Dead and The Calling of the Grave.  He lives in Sheffield.

“Stone Bruises  isn't part of a series, it's a standalone thriller, the first I've written since before the David Hunter series.  I've always tried to keep a sense of freshness and unpredictability about the David Hunter books, because I think that's important for any thriller, whether it's a standalone or not.  The Calling of the Grave was the fourth in the David Hunter series, and I wanted to take time to decide where Hunter would go next.  It wasn't my intention at first to write a completely different novel, but while I was planning the fifth Hunter I found that ideas kept falling into place for Stone Bruises.  It felt like the book I should write next, and that's what happened.  Although Stone Bruises doesn't involve forensics, I think it's a tense and gripping story that will keep people on the edge of their seats.  So I hope David Hunter readers will enjoy it and I'm very excited about it.

Will there be more David Hunter novels in the future?  Yes, there will be.  In fact

I've already started work on the next one.

Stone Bruises -

‘Somebody!’  I half-sob and then, more quietly, ‘Please.’  The words seem absorbed by the afternoon heat, lost amongst the trees.  In their aftermath, the silence descends again.  I know then that I’m not going anywhere...  Sean is on the run.  We don’t know why and we don’t know from whom, but we do know he’s abandoned his battered, bloodstained car in the middle of an isolated, lonely part of rural France at the height of a sweltering summer.  Desperate to avoid the police, he takes to the parched fields and country lanes only to be caught in the vicious jaws of a trap.  Near unconscious from pain and loss of blood, he is freed and taken in by two women - daughters of the owner of a rundown local farm with its ramshackle barn, blighted vineyard and the brooding lake.  And it’s then that Sean’s problems really start...