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| Catherine Johnson |
The Dying Game is set in Whitechapel, and although I was thinking at one point about the parallels with the Jack the Ripper murders, this is not Victorian London.
In my story, set right now, a local sixth former, Shehana, discovers a girl, stabbed and bleeding to death, in the car park of her estate.
The girl dies but not before Shehana is catapulted into a London just under the surface of the one she lives in, a world of street prostitution and drug use and the dangerous gangsters that control them.
I wrote it because Whitechapel, away from the up market shops and trendy bars of Brick Lane, is still a series of worlds, the world of the local Bangladeshi Londoners, the world of the newest Eastern European immigrants working hard to make a living, the world of ordinary young girls, the same age as Shehana tricked and imprisoned
in - what seems to me at least - hell.
And when both worlds collide Shehana finds herself in more danger than
she could ever imagine.
Catherine Johnson's, modern London based crime novels include The
Dying Game and Cuts Deep. She is also a screenwriter, her credits
include the acclaimed British feature film, Bullet Boy. She was writer
in residence in Holloway Prison and it was this that inspired another
novel, Face Value, set in the world of modelling and organised crime.
In my story, set right now, a local sixth former, Shehana, discovers a girl, stabbed and bleeding to death, in the car park of her estate.
The girl dies but not before Shehana is catapulted into a London just under the surface of the one she lives in, a world of street prostitution and drug use and the dangerous gangsters that control them.
I wrote it because Whitechapel, away from the up market shops and trendy bars of Brick Lane, is still a series of worlds, the world of the local Bangladeshi Londoners, the world of the newest Eastern European immigrants working hard to make a living, the world of ordinary young girls, the same age as Shehana tricked and imprisoned
in - what seems to me at least - hell.
And when both worlds collide Shehana finds herself in more danger than
she could ever imagine.
Catherine Johnson's, modern London based crime novels include The
Dying Game and Cuts Deep. She is also a screenwriter, her credits
include the acclaimed British feature film, Bullet Boy. She was writer
in residence in Holloway Prison and it was this that inspired another
novel, Face Value, set in the world of modelling and organised crime.
This looks like something that my students would really enjoy. I hope that Baker and Taylor will carry it in the US.
ReplyDeleteGreat title!
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