Chiswick Detective Poised To Make Return
Decima Blake's new novel features locations you might recognise
Decima Blake
The latest book in a crime mystery series involving a Chiswick-based detective is set to be published later this month.
Decima Blake's 'Hingston: Smoke and Mispers' features the fictional Detective Sergeant Hingston in a book which aims to provide an immersive experience as they join him on his race to solve cases involving missing persons and murder.
Decima combines historical research, accurate police procedure and a touch of spookiness in her novels, and although she is not from Chiswick herself, they contain scenes from the local area.
Based in Chiswick Police Station with the Murder Squad, the latest book begins at the start of Advent with the death of a girl in a London cafe, a missing teenager and the body of a man found in Highgate Cemetery. What follows is a complex investigation with the dark background of London in December.
In chapter eleven of the book Hingston is browsing in a 'tiny, antiquarian bookshop' only yards from the station - "The shelves were fitted from floor to ceiling; they ran underneath the counter and more books were on display behind the bookseller’s till. Hingston caught glimpses of classic titles, famous authors and poets, works he had never heard of and names of places he had never visited. From fiction to non-fiction, he had the sense that many of these first and second editions had sat for decades, largely unread, in grand houses within immense libraries and exquisitely carved bookcases."
Later he sits in a cafe while noticing the 'suitably Christmassy' flower market. He is passed by a young police officer bringing provisions for colleagues waiting in vans on the High Road to provide back up at a football match.
In 2017, following the publication of the first book in the series, Hingston's Box, Decima was invited to speak at the local author events organised by the manager of the Chiswick branch of Waterstones and in the same year she attended the HW Fisher New Blood Drinks Reception for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival 'New Blood Panel', one of only approximately fifty debut crime writers invited to attend.
You can pre-order the book on Kindle and the previous book in the series 'Hingston's Box' is available in paperback.
The charity Embrace Child Victims of Crime receives a percentage of royalties from sales of both books.
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January 16, 2022
