Long Time Dead

  • Crime; Police Procedural

  • March 2024

    • Czech Republic: Dobrovsky

    • Germany: Amazon DE

    • World English Language: Thomas & Mercer

Detective Sheridan Holler Book 1

A cold case that’s no longer cold. A suspect who’s been murdered. A silenced witness.

DI Sheridan Holler is used to solving crimes on Liverpool’s streets, but after a decayed corpse turns up in a cemetery, she finds herself reopening not one but two cold cases. Seven years earlier, two women were gunned down and the only suspect, small-time drug dealer John Lively, was never seen again. Case closed. Until the body in the cemetery is identified as his.

Holler needs to work out if Lively was killed out of revenge for the murders, or was just a victim of the criminal world he inhabited. When shocking evidence is revealed about the murder weapon, Holler’s cold case starts to look hopeless once more.

But defeat is not an option. Driven by the unsolved and traumatic murder of her brother when they were children, DI Holler’s pursuit of justice is relentless. As old wounds are reopened, the police close in on the women’s killer, but the threat of them striking again is all too real. Can DI Holler put the pieces of the puzzle together before anyone else winds up dead?

Selected Praise

T. M. Payne has hit the ground running with Long Time Dead. Gritty, well-paced and packed with vividly drawn characters, it’s a superb debut.
— ​M. W. Craven
Make way for the brilliant Detective Sheridan Holler! Urgent and artful storytelling for die hard fans of crime fiction and new blood alike. True fans of Val McDermid will love Payne’s writing.
— A. J. West
T. M. Payne’s thrilling debut Long Time Dead has a great plot with a well-drawn cast of characters, led by DI Sheridan Holler. If you are a fan of police procedurals, this one set in the mean streets of Liverpool is for you.
— Mari Hannah

Other books by T. M. Payne