Black Earth

'Everything crime fiction should be: gripping, gritty, multi-layered and moving. Kate London brings the shattered communities of Thatcher’s Britain back to life with unnerving authenticity.' Erin Kelly 

'Magnificent. Nobody writes crime fiction as authentic as Kate London. Other crime writers do research – London lived it. Every line carries with it the weight of hard-earned, real-world experience. Crime writing never got less cosy.' Tony Parsons, bestselling author of Man and Boy

'A scorching start to a distinctive new detective series. A gripping, gritty and powerful novel of crime, family and divided loyalties set against the brilliantly evoked backdrop of the 1984 miners’ strikes. I loved it' Anna Mazzola, author of The Clockwork Girl

Black Earth is an exceptional literary crime novel from a former serving Met Detective that will captivate fans of Red Rising, This is England and Adolescence. Black Earth is the first in the Stoke Rising series spanning the three decades from the miners’ strikes of the early 80s to the rise of New Labour and the far right in the early 00s, through the eyes of one Detective and one family at the heart of a country divided. It will cement Kate London as a unique talent in the crime space.

1959. A group of boys from the mining village of Murton run out to play together. When a tragedy occurs, it changes the lives of these boys and everyone around them forever, sending shockwaves that reverberate through their lives.

1984. Detective Constable Ian Wheedon has been running away from himself since he was a boy. He worked in Merseyside covering serious crime, but now lives in a remote police house working as a local cop. His brother, Stephen, is on the front lines of the miners' strike in Stoke.

The force is already stretched to breaking point when Ian is called in to investigate the brutal murder of a childhood friend. The case brings Ian face-to-face with his past, his family, and with the life he left behind. As tensions erupt and tempers fray, the community fractures. When Stephen's son Christopher goes missing, it becomes a race against time to solve the case. Ian and his family must fight for the answers they need and the future they want, before it’s too late.