It feels like ages since I announced anything, so I thought I’d go crazy and announce two things at once.
First, since you all seemed to like Inspector Cutter and Sergeant Bliss so much, I’ve given them another outing. The next novel in the series will be called The Naming of the Birds, and it’s coming out early next year. It’s a standalone novel, so don’t worry if you didn’t get around to reading The House on Vesper Sands. (There’s still time, though. Just saying.)
And that’s not all. The U.S. edition now has a cover, designed by the amazing Beth Steidle. I think it looks glorious even on screen, but oh my, just wait until you see it up close.
The Naming of the Birds will be published in the U.S. on January 7, and the U.K. edition will follow on 6 February. See here for pre-order links and more.
‘Some wrong was done long ago. It cannot be righted, and it has not been forgotten. Someone remembers it.’
Something is troubling Inspector Henry Cutter. Sergeant Gideon Bliss is accustomed to his ill-tempered outbursts, but lately the inspector has grown silent and withdrawn.
Then the murders begin.
The first to die is the elderly Sir Aneurin Considine, a decorated but obscure civil servant who long ago retired to tend his orchids. If the motive for his killing is a mystery, the manner of his death is more bewildering still. The victims that follow suffer similar fates, their deaths gruesome but immaculately orchestrated. The murderer comes and goes like a ghost, leaving only carefully considered traces. As the hunt for this implacable adversary mounts, the Inspector’s gloom deepens, and to Sergeant Bliss, his methods seem as mystifying as the crimes themselves.
Why is he digging through dusty archives while the murderer stalks further victims? And as hints of past wrongdoing emerge—and with them the faint promise of a motive—why does Cutter seem haunted by some long-ago failing of his own?
To find the answers, the meek and hapless sergeant must step out of the inspector’s shadow. Aided by Octavia Hillingdon, a steely and resourceful journalist, Bliss will uncover truths that test his deepest beliefs.
Hypnotic and twisty, Paraic O’Donnell’s The Naming of the Birds will ensnare you until the final pages and leave you questioning what matters most—solving a case or serving justice.
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