Jonathan Dark, or, The evidence of ghosts - A. K Benedict

Maria King knows a secret London. Born blind, she knows the city by sound and touch and smell. But surgery has restored her sight - only for her to find she doesn't want it.

Jonathan Dark sees the shadowy side of the city. A DI with the Metropolitan Police, he is haunted by his failure to save a woman from the hands of a stalker. Now it seems the killer has set his sights on Maria, and is leaving her messages in the most gruesome of ways.

Tracing the source of these messages leads Maria and Jonathan to a London they never knew. Finding the truth will mean seeing a side to the city where life and death is a game played by the powerful, where everyone is lost but nothing is missing, and where all the answers are hiding, if only they listen to the whispers on the streets.

Shot through with love and loss, ghosts and grief, A K Benedict weaves a compelling mystery that will leave you looking over your shoulder and asking what lurks in the dark.

A K Benedict read English at Cambridge and studied creative writing at Sussex. She composed film and television soundtracks, as well as performing as a musician before becoming a full-time writer in 2012. She now writes novels, drama, poetry and short stories, and lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford. Find out more at www.akbenedict.com or follow her on Twitter @ak_benedict

Praise for supernatural crime thriller THE EVIDENCE OF GHOSTS:

This haunting supernatural thriller is full of hidden treasure that will delight you long after you've turned the last page

SARAH PINBOROUGH, bestselling author of BEHIND HER EYES

An absolutely glorious crime/fantasy/ghost story mash-up. In a seriously crowded genre, A K Benedict has produced something original, quirky and enormous fun...Beautifully written, darkly funny, constantly surprising...my find of the year so far
SHARON BOLTON

AK Benedict is snapping at the heels of Ben Aaronovitch as one of the new stars of the sub-genre of crime with a supernatural twist...A sparkling authorial voice and sassy dialogue keep the weird story grounded but ultimately the novel is, as it should be, haunting
SUNDAY EXPRESS

Wonderfully drawn characters, well-crafted sentences and an eye for just the right detail in the right place
JAMES OSWALD

A K Benedict can write beautifully and has imaginative flair
GUARDIAN

Wonderful! The work on an exquisitely twisted imagination
DAVID MARK

A stunning read. I cannot recommend this book highly enough
CRIME THRILLER GIRL

Thought-provoking and haunting. Gorgeous speculative storytelling
LIZ LOVES BOOKS

The best kind of novel...it's witty, tense, intriguing, brimful of great ideas and so compelling that you have to fight the urge to turn the pages almost faster than you can read it just to find out what happens next
MARK MORRIS

One of those books that crawls under your skin from the very first page...an engrossing story of mystery and danger, love and loss, life and death, but at its heart it's a tale of people and the complicated nature of existence...Not to be missed
EDWARD COX

A wonderfully creepy mystery that charts the hidden corners and metaphysical geography of London. Can't wait to see what A K Benedict does next
MASON CROSS

A meeting between the hair-raising and the everyday, which makes it a good read for that chilled night in... unless you're on your own... Do you hear something scuttling?
BOOKBAG

'AK Benedict has combined the hardboiled with the supernatural in a manner that is both gripping and stylish... a tense 21st century Gothic in which the modern world and echoes of the past come together to create something excitingly new.'
CRIME SCENE

'Truly original... Add revengeful ghosts helping and hindering the living, loving evocations of London's river and dark side, conspiracies by the handful and characters quite unlike those encountered in your average modern British crime novel and you have a potent cocktail that will linger in your mind and nightmares for ages.'
LOVE READING - Maxim Jakubowski