That which was lost... will always be found again.
Sheffield’s beautiful Botanical Gardens – an oasis of peace in a world filled with sorrow, confusion and pain. And then, one morning, a body is found in the Gardens. A young woman, dead from a stab wound, buried in a quiet corner. Police quickly determine that the body’s been there for months. It would have gone undiscovered for years – but someone just sneaked into the Gardens and dug it up.
Who is the victim? Who killed her and hid her body? Who dug her up? And who left a macabre marker on the body?
In his quest to find her murderer, DS Adam Tyler will find himself drawn into the secretive world of nighthawkers: treasure-hunters who operate under cover of darkness, seeking the lost and valuable… and willing to kill to keep what they find.
If you remember my review for Russ Thomas's
Firewatching, you'll know how impressed I was with the beginning of the series. The sequel,
Nighthawking, fully lived up to my expectations! When a book opens with a dead body buried in a botanical garden with Roman coins in the eye sockets, you know you're going to be in for a
thrilling read.
Nighthawking is a
tense and gripping police procedural set in
Sheffield, featuring
Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler, a cold case reviewer with a troubled past. I don't come across
LGBT protagonists in crime fiction very often, and it's something I'm desperate to see more of, so a huge shout out to Russ for making his books so inclusive.
Russ is brilliant at writing diverse, believable characters. He has created a fantastically frustrating protagonist in the character of Adam, and I'm a huge fan of the ambitious Detective Constable Amina Rabbani, who really blossoms as a force to be reckoned with in this book.
It's so clear this story has been thoroughly researched, especially around the topics of metal detection and plant life, which really bring the story to life, and set it apart from anything else I've ever read. There are several interesting threads to this tightly-plotted story, which weave together perfectly, combined with excellent pacing.
I'm a fan of crime novels with shifting perspectives and it's done so well in this book, with the inclusion of diary entries from the nighthawkers themselves, which serve as a brilliant insight into the story.
The way this compelling book ends, with a satisfying conclusion to the case melting into an insane cliffhanger, has left me desperate to find out what happens next in this fantastic series.
About the author
Russ Thomas is an author and creative writing tutor living in Sheffield. Firewatching is Russ's first book in a new series of crime thrillers set in Sheffield, published by Simon & Schuster in the UK. The sequel, Nighthawking, will be released in April 2021.
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