FICTION · POLICE
Chris Simms
Also known as: simms-chris, Simms, Chris, 1969-
Chris Simms has worked in airports, nightclubs, post offices and telesales centres. Along with nominations for Crime Writers’ Association Daggers and the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year award, Chris was selected by Waterstones as one of their ’25 authors for the future’. The idea for his debut novel, Outside the White Lines, came to him in the early hours of the morning while broken down on the hard shoulder of the M40. His series of DI Spicer novels – psychological thrillers set very firmly in Manchester – follow the police detective’s fortunes as he pursues mad, bad and deadly individuals through the city’s ever-changing landscape. More recently, he has launched a new series featuring DC Sean Blake – an inexperienced young detective fighting to establish himself in the close-knit Serious Crimes Unit of Manchester’s police. Chris says he is drawn to books that give insights into unusual minds. The twisted desires of Frederick in John Fowles’, The Collector; the tormented thoughts of Scobie in Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter; the violent urges of Francie in Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy are all books Chris states had an influence in shaping him as a writer. (Source)
was following Derry Welfram at a prudent fifty paces when he stumbled, fell face down on the wet tarmac and lay still.
— from The edge
Most acclaimed
Shifting Skin (Detective Jon Spicer Thrillers)
'The Butcher of Belle Vue' has struck again. Like the first two victims, the third has been partially skinned and dumped on waste ground, her muscles, tendons and ligaments exposed to view. Only this time, her face has also been removed. Jon Spicer and his new partner, Rick Saville, are on the investigating team. The case is waiting for its first breakthrough when a woman approaches Jon insisting that she heard 'The Butcher' claiming his third victim in the next-door room of a run-down hotel in Belle Vue. But all she has to back up her story is a business card that she recovered from the empty room the following morning - it's from a local escort agency and the name 'Alexia' has been scrawled on the back. Jon's investigation takes him into the twilight world of Manchester's escort agencies and the unscrupulous cosmetic surgery industry, ultimately forcing him to confront the propensity for violence that is inherent within each of us - even within himself.
The edge
Dear Reader: If you remember, Ford MacDougal (Mac) first appeared in The Maze, at Quantico with Sherlock. Now Mac is flat of his back at Bethesda, seriously wounded in a terrorist car bombing when he dreams that his sister, Jilly, a medical researcher, drives her Porsche off an Oregon cliff. Only thing is, Mac feels like he's with her. When Mac arrives in Oregon to find out what's going on, Jilly comes out of her coma, only to disappear a few hours later without a trace. In searching for her, Mac hears a different story from everyone he encounters, even from the local sheriff. And then there is Laura...a woman who fascinates him, a woman who could kill him if he trusts her. When a local old man ismurdered, Mac doesn't at first suspect that the case connects to his sister's disappearance. FBI agents Savich and Sherlock (last seen in The Target) join Mac to ride shotgun. Not knowing whom to trust and whom to suspect, they must escape relentless pursuers before unearthing the tentacles of evil undermining The Edge. FBI - 4