Avison Fluke series by M.W. Craven
If you like crime fiction, you really should know the name M. W. Craven by now. His Washington Poe novels have gathered fans far and wide since The Puppet Show published in 2018, he’s been praised by the biggest names in thriller writing from Peter James to Martina Cole, and at the end of last year he won the most prestigious crime fiction award, the CWA Gold Dagger, for best crime novel of the year. On top of this, he was also shortlisted for the Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards: Best Crime Novel, the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award and the Dead Good Reader Awards in 2019. Oh, and he won Cumbria Life Author of the Year. (Okay, okay… I’ll stop now.)
If you’ve read and loved the Washington Poe novels, The Puppet Show and Black Summer, and are eagerly awaiting book three in the series (The Curator is out in June), then I have just the novels to keep you gripped in the meantime . . . Meet Avison Fluke: the star of Craven’s other crime series.
Avison Fluke is a Detective Inspector in Cumbrian police force and, just like Washington Poe, he has no shortage of gruesome and complex crime cases to solve (I’m talking severed hands, execution-style murders – the lot). Unlike Washington Poe though, Fluke works within the law, and he has no spaniel sidekick.
Born in a Burial Gown and Body Breaker deliver the kind of gritty, pacy crime writing that Craven has become known and loved for, and it’s no surprise that the first novel was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger Award. Pick up the series and decide whether your heart lies with Washington Poe, or whether Avison Fluke could steal the show . . .
Hannah Wann
'Deeply layered, fiendishly clever and absorbing' Matt Hilton, author of the Joe Hunter series
The first gritty thriller in the Avison Fluke series by M. W. Craven, the acclaimed author of The Puppet Show.
Detective Inspector Avison Fluke is a man on the edge. He has committed a crime to get back to work, concealed a debilitating illness and is about to be made homeless. Just as he thinks things can't get any worse, the body of a young woman is found buried on a Cumbrian building site.
Shot once in the back of the head, it is a cold, calculated execution. When the post-mortem reveals she has gone to significant expense in disguising her appearance, Fluke knows this is no ordinary murder.
With the help of a psychotic ex-Para, a gangland leader and a woman more interested in maggots than people, Fluke must find out who she was and why she was murdered before he can even think about finding her killer...
Praise for M. W. Craven:
'Dark, sharp and compelling' PETER JAMES
'Fantastic' MARTINA COLE
'Britain's answer to Harry Bosch' MATT HILTON
'Thrilling' MICK HERRON
'Brilliantly inventive' WILLIAM SHAW
'A powerful thriller from an explosive new talent' DAVID MARK
'This is high quality crime writing' A A Dhand
The second dark and twisted thriller in the Avison Fluke series by M. W. Craven, the acclaimed author of The Puppet Show.
Investigating how a severed hand ends up on the third green of a Cumbrian golf course is not how Detective Inspector Avison Fluke has planned to spend his Saturday. So when a secret protection unit from London swoops in quoting national security, he's secretly pleased.
But trouble is never far away. A young woman arrives at his lakeside cabin with a cryptic message: a code known to only a handful of people and it forces Fluke back into the investigation he's only just been barred from.
In a case that will change his life forever, Fluke immerses himself in a world of New Age travellers, corrupt cops and domestic extremists. Before long he's alienated his entire team, has been arrested under the Terrorism Act - and has made a pact with the Devil himself. But a voice has called out to him from beyond the grave. And Fluke is only getting started...
Praise for M. W. Craven:
'Dark, sharp and compelling' PETER JAMES
'Fantastic' MARTINA COLE
'Britain's answer to Harry Bosch' MATT HILTON
'Thrilling' MICK HERRON
'Brilliantly inventive' WILLIAM SHAW
'A powerful thriller from an explosive new talent' DAVID MARK
