Stark Warning

By James Raven

“Every time you appear on screen someone will die.”

That’s the stark warning given to Jessica Lee, the undisputed ‘Queen of Trash TV.’ She’s the host of a confessional talk show on network television with millions of fans. But one deranged viewer is out to destroy her career. 

He demands that her programme be scrapped and tells her to stop appearing on TV. To prove he means business he claims his first victim – a young woman who is found dead with her throat cut. Jessica and her bosses face an agonising dilemma: take the show off the air or risk more murders. They decide to defy the killer, for fear of setting a dangerous precedent. But there are dire consequences…

 Charged with trying to stop the carnage is DCI Sam Quinn who has been seconded to the Met’s ‘Celebrity Crime Squad’. Quinn is particularly qualified following the murder of his own actress wife Karen 16 months earlier, a tragedy which propelled him towards gambling and eventually into the clutches of local gangster Baz Carter.  

But how low is the Network prepared to go to protect their ratings?  How does the killer select his victims in his bid to make Jessica suffer – and what ultimately is to be her fate?  Can DCI Quinn keep Carter’s goons off his back long enough to follow the crimson tide to its seemingly inevitable conclusion?

Stark Warning is the first book in the DCI Sam Quinn series.