Sharon Bolton, published as S J Bolton has been a welcome addition to hard-edged crime. This is a handsome rebinding of the first Lacey Flint book Now You See Me (2011). UK First edition rebound in black leather, with a gold and black marble design on the sides, red top edge, one of 12 deluxe lettered copies, signed on a special page of text approved by the author.

The added text reads:

S J Bolton has become a force in crime thrillers in a short space of time. Her books are international best sellers and are favourites with her fans. Sacrifice (2008), her debut interweaves two seemingly distinct subjects – mysticism and science; she has continued to explore in a succession of novels, scary, ritualized goings-on as plot devises and interlaced other sometimes disturbing practices in medical science ethics, social media, the abuse of personal data and so on to forge strong gripping thrillers of the present.

Bolton is a master story teller. Her shore of tools is an easy flowing style, ability to convey what is going on from disparate perspectives, and an integral headlong emotional charge. The reader is in the situation. Add to this her disposition to work on the splintering edge or perhaps reformation of the crime genre, morphed between police procedural, scary thriller and human choices, Bolton is one of our pathfinders. The stories hit the reader too with a conscious, underlying purpose: the crimes are often against the vulnerable, woman, the young; and her narrative offers some explanation to the nasty events.

Sharon Bolton has always been clever with her choice of setting, the isolated Highlands, the Mendips; but it was with the Limehouse “oily blackness of the Thames” setting for the Lacey Flint novels that is a stroke of brilliance. Combining the multi-cultural/literary backdrop of crimes involving the Ripper, Fu Manchu, it conveys mystery and seclusion.

It is of course the Lacey Flint series which draws many of her fans. She is an unlikely mixture of traits: young, unpretentious, bright and yet chaotic, flawed, and implosive. She has marvellous ability to work things out but can she hold it together? Her difficult childhood is brought out in the four novels to date. Her maladies include an identity crisis, loneliness, self-harm, and flings of loveless sex. Her career is up, down, and side-lined. Neither is the team around Flint altogether stable. DI Dana Tulloch is prone to loosing control, the likable single parent Mark Joseberry tends to disappear when you need him, but these are balanced with the sympathetic Mike Kayes, or the straight talking Anderson. But it is Lacey that holds the attention. Like Carrie Matheson in Homeland she is “in and out and all over the place”. Yet she does find the resolve and tenacity to make it happen. We shout “Go, Lacey!”

Issued in 2018 with the original dust jacket.