After graduating with a PhD in psychology from Cardiff University, South Wales-born and raised author Emma Kavanagh spent many years working as a police and military psychologist before turning her hand to writing crime fiction. Judging by her fourth novel The Killer on the Wall (Arrow), Emma’s experience is still being put to extremely good use.
When fifteen-year-old Isla Bell finds three bodies propped against Hadrian’s Wall, her whole world falls apart. In such a close-knit community, everyone knows the victims, and the man who did it. Twenty years on and Isla has dedicated her life to forensic psychology; studying the brains of serial killers, and even coming face to face with the convicted murderer who turned her world upside down. She is safe after all, with him behind bars. Then another body appears against the Wall… and another. As the nightmare returns and the body count rises, so everyone in town is a suspect.
The Killer on the Wall could be taken as something of a Broadchurch with science. That said, the pace is electrifying and the jargon kept to a minimum thanks to Emma’s lightness of touch and astute storytelling style.