THE RAVEN'S EYE

An edge-of-your-seat read, The Raven's Eye is a classic Brock & Kolla crime novel by a crime writer on top of his game.

A woman dies in her sleep in a houseboat on the Thames; the apparent cause of death an unflued gas heater. It all seems above board, but DI Kathy Kolla isn't convinced. But both Kathy and DCI Brock run up against opposition in their investigation. An aggressive new Commander seems to have a different agenda, focusing on the new realities of budget constraints and tight resources, and favouring emerging technologies to replace the traditional policing methods. Oldfashioned cops like Brock and Kolla are being squeezed out. To make matters worse, there's a new Digital Security Task Force operating on their patch and taking all their resources, and there's a brutal killer, Butcher Jack Bragg, to be tracked down and caught. It's one of Brock and Kolla's bloodiest, most violent investigations yet. A throat-stopping, heart-thumping read,The Raven's Eye gives us Brock and Kolla under pressure; it's a clash between new technologies and old policing – the menacing ever-present eye of computer surveillance versus the explosive threat of a man with a meat cleaver and a grudge. This is a contemporary, brilliant 21st century police procedural that only Barry Maitland could write. Barry Maitland was born in Scotland and brought up in London. After studying architecture at Cambridge, he practised and taught in the UK before moving to Australia where he was Professor of Architecture at the University of Newcastle. He has since retired from the university to pursue his writing. Maitland's first mystery The Marx Sisters was a nominee for the John Creasey award for Best First Novel and The Malcontenta won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction. Bright Air, Maitland's first crime novel set in Australia, was published in 2008. The Raven's Eye is his twelfth Brock & Kolla mystery.