FICTION · CRIME
Oliver Harris
Oliver Harris was born in north London in 1978. He has a first-class degree in English Literature and an MA in Shakespeare Studies from UCL, and an MA in creative writing from UEA. He has worked in clothing warehouses, PR companies and as a TV and film extra. More recently he assisted with research in the Imperial War Museum archives, and continues to act as a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement. Oli is currently finishing pursuing a PhD on antiquity in the work of Jacques Lacan at Birkbeck’s London Consortium, and in the last few months has presented papers on obscenity at the Hayward and on conspiracy theories at Ghent’s Vooruit Arts Centre. He loves travelling, especially in cold places. He has written two novels featuring London detective Nick Belsey: The Hollow Man and Deep Shelter. Both books are published by Jonathan Cape/Vintage and are also available as ebooks.
TO THE murder of Professor Grimaud, and later the equally incredible crime in Cagliostro Street, many fantastic terms could be applied-with reason.
— from The hollow man, 1951
Most acclaimed
Junky
1994
A semi-autobiographical account, narrated in a matter-of-fact manner, of the author’s life as a drug addict. The story ranges from the backstreets of New York to a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kentucky, the bars of New Orleans and on to Mexico, recounting the difficulties of obtaining drugs, financial problems and homosexual encounters. Burroughs significantly stretched the boundaries of publishable material with his debut novel.
Deep Shelter
In this gritty, white-knuckle crime thriller, Detective Nick Belsey—introduced in the acclaimed The Hollow Man as a shrewd, street-smart cynic who is one of London’s sharpest, but most unprincipled, investigators—is plunged into a perplexing mystery of secrets, danger, and suspense beneath the city’s streets. Trouble once again finds Nick Belsey when he takes a date to an abandoned bomb shelter buried beneath the heart of London. One minute the young woman is there, and the next, she’s gone, mysteriously vanishing into the dark labyrinth of secret tunnels. A seasoned cop with a bad reputation, Nick knows that if he reports her disappearance, he’ll be the prime suspect. Instead, he’s going to find her. It’s not just her life at stake—it’s his, too. Determined to discover who else is down in those forgotten tunnels, and how far this secret network of underground passages extends, he plunges head first into the investigation—and into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with a ruthless enemy who would rather let an innocent woman die than reveal old Cold War secrets hidden deep beneath the city’s streets. An edgy, subversive thriller with the superb characterization of classic Lawrence Block and the psychological acuity and suspense of Sophie Hannah, Deep Shelter is a compulsively readable mystery from a master of literary suspense.
The hollow man
1951
Jeremy Bremen has a secret. All his life he's been cursed with the ability to read minds. He knows the secret thoughts, fears, and desires of others as if they were his own. For years, his wife, Gail, has served as a shield between Jeremy and the burden of this terrible knowledge. But Gail is dying, her mind ebbing slowly away, leaving him vulnerable to the chaotic flood of thought that threatens to sweep away his sanity. Now Jeremy is on the run--from his mind, from his past, from himself--hoping to find peace in isolation. Instead he witnesses an act of brutality that propels him on a treacherous trek across a dark and dangerous America. From a fantasy theme park to the lair of a killer to a sterile hospital room in St. Louis, he follows a voice that is calling him to witness the stunning mystery at the heart of mortality.