CRIME FICTION
published by Hemlock Press/ Harper Collins
Debut crime fiction novel by Nina Bhadreshwar - coming January 2025
PRE-ORDER HERE: https://smarturl.it/DOTR
'My debut crime novel introduces DI Diana Walker, a fearless detective who inherits a can of worms, bullets and butchery when she is called in to investigate the brutal murder of a headmaster at a recently closed Sheffield school. The case has her struggling against an institution that refuses to acknowledge gender violence as a ‘real’ crime, and a silent, distrusting community which includes her own mother and her book club. At the same time, Njambi, Diana’s Kenyan grandmother is fighting for justice as a victim of the atrocities committed by the British Army in Kenya over fifty years ago. Diana’s one release is her daily jog through the dense woodlands beside her house.
A fan of crime fiction, I wanted to give this novel the flavour and textures that represented the worlds and perspectives of my characters with the pace, plot and motives of a police procedural. My protagonist, DI Diana Walker, is a woman brave enough to work within an institution aligned against her. As she hunts for the killer, her personal and professional worlds collide and she has to face her family’s past to find the truth in the present.
The Day of the Roaring is set in 2010 between the urban sprawl of southwestern Sheffield and the wealthier, wilder Peak District nearby – areas I grew up, lived and worked in. I once managed a small woodland on the border of Staffordshire and it had a glade in the middle which was ‘owned’ by the deer during the rutting season. I learned the rhythms of the year through them. This is the backbone to my story. I wanted to navigate the barriers between the wild countryside, owned lands and the crowded urban city, to show what happens to those who literally cross this line.
I used to teach in a school in Sheffield. The students are inspired by various young people I have met and taught in Sheffield, London and Manchester. Many of the schools I worked in were critically underfunded, with students from primarily Black, Arabic or Asian backgrounds. My father, although born in India, was raised and educated in Tanzania, and talked a great deal about what had happened during British colonialism in East Africa. My time spent there and what I learned inspired Njambi’s pursuit of justice. In this novel, I sought to give a voice to the unheard communities failed by our institutions, to the students I felt powerless to help.'