Dead Ground by Justin Warren
A quiet farmhouse. Four dead. One survivor. Dylan Harper thought all his problems died that night. He was wrong.
Ten years have passed and Detective Harper has moved far away. But the memories of that night still haunt him. They keep him awake, constantly checking the shadows as if the ghosts are still with him. He had vowed never to go back. Never to set foot on that dead ground ever again. But a case has come up that requires his expertise. A newspaper journalist, vanished without a trace from the same general area, the local authorities fresh out of leads. Detective Harper is told the case is his. Turning it down is not an option.
As Harper returns to the small town where everything went so horribly wrong all those years ago, he instantly knows something is wrong. Someone is watching him. Someone with a long memory and a sick grudge. One thing is crystal clear. Whoever is out there, is out for revenge, and they won’t rest until Harper is dead. The list of suspects is long and Harper has no idea where to start looking. With the help of his new partner he begins to unravel a twisted set of clues that will lead him down dark and dangerous avenues. As the tension escalates and the body count rises, Harper realizes he must finally confront his personal demons if he hopes to make it out alive.
In this pulse-pounding thriller, Justin Warren takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride through the deepest recesses of the human psyche, exploring the nature of vengeance, justice, and redemption. With twists and turns in almost every chapter, DEAD GROUND is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page!
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Author Bio:
Justin Warren was born in Westport, New Zealand. His father was a newspaper journalist, and his mother was a dental nurse.
During the early 1990’s he worked as a reporter at the Westport News. It was during this time he developed his love of writing, and where the idea for his debut novel was born. Justin’s first three crime thrillers are all set in the small town of Westport, and the local newspaper plays a role in all three books. “That idea of the small-town mystery always appealed to me. The gossip, innuendo, isolation from the outside world, and the constant tension as anyone and everyone is a suspect.”
Another thing that drew Justin to set his books in this part of the world was the scenery. “Westport is a special place. I don’t live there anymore myself, but I love the town. You’ve got 3000-foot tall mountains on one side, the ocean on the other, and then you have this rainforest-shrouded ribbon of land where the town is and where all the action takes place. Westport has this wonderfully atmospheric quality about it, especially when it rains, which it tends to do in my books. A dark, brooding, almost claustrophobic tension, mixed with all the eccentric personalities of the locals. That’s what I try and capture in my books.”
In 1998 he graduated from The University of Canterbury with a degree in Commerce. In 2016 he returned to his first passion, penning the debut crime novel, THE FORGOTTEN LANDS (later renamed DEAD GROUND), which was self-published in 2017 and longlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Crime Awards in 2018. In 2020 he published his second novel, THE LEWIS PASS, which received high praise from the Lilian Ida Smith Awards and won the Book Award at the 2021 Page Turner Awards. In 2022 Justin released his third book, THE NIGHT BELONGS TO HER. He is currently working on his fourth book, due out later this year.
The authors that have most influenced his style include Michael Connelly and Raymond Chandler, with their richly layered descriptions and brooding lead characters being a major source of creative inspiration. Other favourites include Ben Sanders, Tana French, Patricia Cornwell, Ian Ranking, Peter James and Paul Cleeve.
Justin lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, with his wife, two children, and his two cats, Arial and Dexter.