Down River

"Perhaps the finest contemporary British thriller writer" GQ

Johnny Mays has the moral conscience of a selfish child in the frame of a plain-clothes cop. The city is his playground, the rest of us his toys. He likes to find out where we work, and where we live, and what will scare us most. And Johnny never had a toy he didn't break.

But Johnny starts a car chase, and he pushes it too far. Soon they're fishing for his body at the foot of a dam, and his partner Nick Frazier has been left behind. They were friends, once, a long time ago. Nick had hoped that he might save Johnny.

Johnny's last words still echo in Nick's mind: "I'm going to remember this," he said, a dark fire in his eyes. "I'm coming back for you."

Then the killings start. Killings of people Johnny didn't like. And Johnny's car is dredged up, empty.
"The denouement, thanks to Gallagher's strong writing and excellent characterisations, is unforgettable." (Publishers Weekly)
"An out-and-out novel of paranoia, tension and sharply honed violence which confirms Gallagher as one of Britain's most exciting writers of literate, nerve-shredding thrillers. Down River is Gallagher's most impressive novel to date. He's stripped, oiled and tuned his prose until it growls like a Ferrari, smooth, fast, and very, very powerful. The horror is firmly rooted in reality, yet seems ready at any moment to veer into deep, dark shadows... an unstoppable, gut-wrenching ride to the last page." (Starburst)

"Oktober broke new ground in its blending of genres, its thoughtful characterisation, and its non-stop action. With Down River, Gallagher returns to his own brand of police procedural once more... and he's pulled it off brilliantly." (Mystery Scene)

Stephen Gallagher is a novelist and screenwriter, and creator of TV's Eleventh Hour. Television adaptations of his novels Chimera and Oktober starred John Lynch and Stephen Tompkinson. His most recent novel is The Bedlam Detective.

"If thriller reading were a sin, Stephen Gallagher would be responsible for my ultimate damnation. His work is fast-paced, well-written, infused with a sense of dark wonder, and altogether fresh." (Dean R Koontz)

"The finest British writer of bestselling popular fiction since le Carre." (The Independent)