Picked by Cal Innes fans

Here are 4 books that Cal Innes fans have personally recommended once you finish the Cal Innes series. Book DNA is a community of authors and super-readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

Book cover of Death at the Seaside

Nick Quantrill Author Of Sound of the Sinners

From my list on crime set in the North of England.

Why am I passionate about this?

The North of England is home. I was born here, I work here and it’s where I will see out my days. It’s a place with its own character, a place largely forged on hard industrial work and one trying to find a new purpose after decades of financial neglect. My home city of Hull captures this in miniature as we’ve shared a journey over the last decade via my novels from 'UK Crap Town of the Year’ to ‘UK City of Culture.’ Tied in with my background in studying Social Policy and Criminology, I’ll continue to map the city and the region’s trials and tribulations.

Nick's book list on crime set in the North of England

Nick Quantrill Why Nick loves this book

The North of England isn’t all post-industrial urban centres of decay. As well as being home to large and important cities, its green spaces are plentiful and attract numerous tourists to its many attractions. Frances Brody’s PI Kate Shackleton series makes use of Yorkshire’s picturesque and pleasant rural settings, not least the rolling moors leading to the coastal town of Whitby in the series’ eighth outing. Set in the 1920s, Brody’s series is also a reminder of the importance of subverting and challenging social norms, but never at the expense of entertaining the reader.

By Frances Brody ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Death at the Seaside as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Frances Brody has made it to the top rank of crime writers' Daily Mail

'Brody's writing is like her central character Kate Shackleton: witty, acerbic and very, very perceptive' Ann Cleeves

AN IDYLLIC SEASIDE TOWN

Nothing ever happens in August, and tenacious sleuth Kate Shackleton deserves a break. Heading off for a long-overdue holiday to Whitby, she visits her school friend Alma who works as a fortune teller there.

A MISSING GIRL

Kate had been looking forward to a relaxing seaside sojourn, but upon arrival discovers that Alma's daughter Felicity has disappeared, leaving her mother a note and the pawn…


Book cover of Long Way Home

Nick Quantrill Author Of Sound of the Sinners

From my list on crime set in the North of England.

Why am I passionate about this?

The North of England is home. I was born here, I work here and it’s where I will see out my days. It’s a place with its own character, a place largely forged on hard industrial work and one trying to find a new purpose after decades of financial neglect. My home city of Hull captures this in miniature as we’ve shared a journey over the last decade via my novels from 'UK Crap Town of the Year’ to ‘UK City of Culture.’ Tied in with my background in studying Social Policy and Criminology, I’ll continue to map the city and the region’s trials and tribulations.

Nick's book list on crime set in the North of England

Nick Quantrill Why Nick loves this book

Stretching the geographical boundary a little, Dolan’s police series takes us to Peterborough, another location scared by political and financial neglect. It’s the terrain I tread in the Joe Geraghty series, our cities are not too different. Beyond that, Dolan also makes giving the police series a fresh shot of adrenaline looks easy. Based in the Hate Crimes Units, DI Zigic and DS Ferreira, give voice to those who are marginalised and without voice, a welcome rebalancing and one that questions the power and position of the police.

By Eva Dolan ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Long Way Home as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A man is burnt alive in a shed.

No witnesses, no fingerprints - only a positive ID of the victim as an immigrant with a long list of enemies.

Detectives Zigic and Ferreira are called in from the Hate Crimes Unit to track the killer, and are met with silence in a Fenland community ruled by slum racketeers, people-trafficking gangs and fear.

Tensions rise.
The clock is ticking.
But nobody wants to talk.


Book cover of Jack's Return Home

Nick Quantrill Author Of Sound of the Sinners

From my list on crime set in the North of England.

Why am I passionate about this?

The North of England is home. I was born here, I work here and it’s where I will see out my days. It’s a place with its own character, a place largely forged on hard industrial work and one trying to find a new purpose after decades of financial neglect. My home city of Hull captures this in miniature as we’ve shared a journey over the last decade via my novels from 'UK Crap Town of the Year’ to ‘UK City of Culture.’ Tied in with my background in studying Social Policy and Criminology, I’ll continue to map the city and the region’s trials and tribulations.

Nick's book list on crime set in the North of England

Nick Quantrill Why Nick loves this book

Published in 1970, it’s a touchstone crime novel for all writers wanting to explore the small towns and cities of the industrial north. Leaving London to return home to Scunthorpe, Jack Carter is a man on a revenge mission and wants to know who murdered his brother. With a keen eye for social attitudes and lives in a one-horse town, the novel transcends the page, and under the title of Get Carter, it gives us one of the great crime films of the 20th century. More than that, the novel’s Humber setting taught me I could also write about my neglected home city of Hull.

By Ted Lewis ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Jack's Return Home as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of The Dark Winter

Nick Quantrill Author Of Sound of the Sinners

From my list on crime set in the North of England.

Why am I passionate about this?

The North of England is home. I was born here, I work here and it’s where I will see out my days. It’s a place with its own character, a place largely forged on hard industrial work and one trying to find a new purpose after decades of financial neglect. My home city of Hull captures this in miniature as we’ve shared a journey over the last decade via my novels from 'UK Crap Town of the Year’ to ‘UK City of Culture.’ Tied in with my background in studying Social Policy and Criminology, I’ll continue to map the city and the region’s trials and tribulations.

Nick's book list on crime set in the North of England

Nick Quantrill Why Nick loves this book

It’s always strange when another writer tackles the same city you’re mapping, but it’s also a reminder that we see places in fundamentally different ways. I write about Hull as an insider looking out with David taking the opposite approach, arriving in the city as a journalist. In the debut outing for DI Aector McAvoy, it may be his writing background that allows him to look the place in the eye and draw a fantastically vivid city dealing with multiple social issues, but also one in which he finds its heart packed with spirit and hope.

By David Mark ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Dark Winter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times hails David Mark's work as "in the honorable tradition of Joseph Wambaugh and Ed McBain." DARK WINTER is the first book in the internationally acclaimed Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy series.

A series of suspicious deaths have rocked Hull, a port city in England as old and mysterious as its bordering sea. They have captured the attention of Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy. He notices a pattern missed by his fellow officers, who would rather get a quick arrest than bother themselves with finding the true killer. Torn between his police duties and his aching desire to spend…