Beacon Hill by Colin Campbell

Former British cop Jim Grant is back in Boston, now a fully-fledged member of the Boston PD based at Jamaica Plain.

Working the nightshift for fellow detective Sam Kincaid should have been an easy job, but after saving a kidnapped child from a blazing house and attending a drive-by shooting in Beacon Hill, it proves to be anything but. The trouble is the wealthy target, Daniel Hunt, doesn’t want to complain and Grant’s bosses try and shut him down.

Grant isn’t one for shutting down and it doesn’t take him long to discover that Hunt wasn’t the intended target. After a foiled robbery and a squashed dog, the case turns personal, then the stakes really go through the roof.

BEACON HILL author Colin Campbell stopped by The Big Thrill to discuss his latest thriller:

What do you hope readers will take away from this book?

The pleasure of spending more time with Jim Grant, a gritty Yorkshireman with a dry sense of humor.

How does this book make a contribution to the genre?

Continues the tradition of the strong, silent hero. Except he’s not always strong and is anything but silent. An Englishman abroad. Or a Yorkshireman, as Jim Grant would say.

Was there anything new you discovered, or that surprised you, as you wrote this book?

There’s a twist in the middle that I didn’t see coming. It changed the direction of the story quite dramatically.

What authors or books have influenced your career as a writer, and why?

Joseph Wambaugh’s The Choirboys influenced my first crime novel because, like me, it was about uniform patrol cops. And Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books, because you can’t escape them if you write a strong male character.

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Ex army, retired cop and former Scenes Of Crime Officer. Colin Campbell is the author of British crime novels Blue Knight White Cross, and Northern Ex, and US thrillers Jamaica Plain, Montecito Heights, Adobe Flats and Snake Pass. His Jim Grant thrillers bring a rogue Yorkshire cop to America, where culture clash and violence ensue.

To learn more about Colin, please visit his website.