The first Newark Panel

Abir Mukherjee’s Hunted will open this years’ Newark Festival, alongside Mark Billingham’s second book in his new detective series. I’ve known about Hunted for a while, since I was on a panel as part of the Sandwell literary festival last year after I met the organiser at my own book launch in Harrogate.



Hunted is very different to Abir’s historical style and he says it took him longer to write than it would one of those, as this is a crime thriller that is completely different in style, based in America, too. The audiobook has three different narrators and has four central perspectives. This allows the pace of the book to be maintained throughout the journey from one end of the country to the other, in order for the FBI or the family of likely suspects to stop the terror attack. This fast paced approach and Abir’s skilled ability to look at the story from many different perspectives, something that is present in other series, too, allows for this story to resonate at a time of elections here and in America. I just hope that fiction does not reflect reality, as all good crime will scare you slightly. I’ll be really interested to see what Abir will do if he comes up with another storyline based upon a thriller.