Synopsis ...

When Prison Officer Sean Coughlin is found brutally murdered, D/I Joe Faraday is called in to drive the investigation. Newly appointed to Portsmouth's elite Major Incident Team, Faraday begins to build a disturbing picture of the dead man's life.

With few friends and many enemies, Coughlin appears to be a murder waiting to happen. Was the killer a recently released prisoner on Coughlin's watch, a wrongly-convicted small-time gangster with a seven-year grudge? Or do the real clues lie buried even deeper in Coughlin's past?

As the inquiry begins to probe the prison officer's naval service, Faraday becomes uncomfortably aware that the investigative trail leads twenty years backwards to the Falklands War. Coughlin served aboard a naval frigate, HMS Accolade, bombed and sunk by Argentinian Skyhawks in San Carlos Water. Nineteen lives were lost to enemy action, a tragedy which may - two decades later - mask another murder.

Reviews

DI Joe Faraday returns in the fourth instalment of this superior series set in Portsmouth. Now part of the town's elite Major Incident Team he investigates the death of an unpopular prison officer and discovers that the trail goes back to the officer's naval service during the Falklands war. This is how a crime novel should be written, and it pushes Hurley right to the forefront of British crime writers, where he richly deserves to be.
Mark Timlin, The Independent on Sunday

In Deadlight, once again set in the grimmest parts of Portsmouth, Joe Faraday and the team are investigating the killing of a widely hated prison officer. Uncompromisingly realistic and often depressing in its view of crime, this series grows in stature with each book. Susanna Yager, The Sunday Telegraph.

This is crime writing with attitude. Graham Hurley's D/I Joe Faraday is everything that Inspector Morse is not, and the books are all the more impressive because Faraday's beat isn't leafy Oxford but the netherworld of Portsmouth. Authentic, bleak, and richly documentary, the Faraday series offers the key to an entire city. Read these books and you'll understand why Blair's Britain is falling apart.
Ed Vulliamy, The Observer

Graham Hurley’s Faraday series is already much admired and this book might well be the one that wins him a mass audience. Hurley has moved on somewhat from his previous preoccupation with Portsmouth’s dark and desperate underbelly and although this instalment is as serious as ever in its social concerns, it also provides lighter moments which have hitherto been missing. In addition, it’s got a great plot, rich in naval detail.
Mat Coward, Morning Star.

Faraday and Winter make an excellent detective pairing, and Portsmouth is a good locale for a crime series. Deadlight is an intriguing mystery and makes with a gritty tale, told with plenty of verve.
Tim Manderson, Publishing News.

I officially declare myself a fan of Graham Hurley. His attention to detail (without slowing the pace of his novels) mark him out as a most accomplished purveyor of the British police procedural. The latest crop of newcomers to this genre are producing some mighty fine reading. Check ‘em out – especially Graham Hurley.
George Easter, Deadly Pleasures.

Graham Hurley’s Deadlight stretches the stock assumptions of the police procedural….he is good on the ways in which the preconceptions of the investigating officers can hopelessly contaminate their judgement and the way that crucial pieces of evidence can entirely turn a case on its head. This is an intelligent thriller because it remembers that no one is all of a simple piece. Most of the police in Hurley’s cast, even his viewpoint figure Joe Faraday, are only marginally less flawed than the villains.
Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk

Deadlight is the fourth thriller featuring D/I Joe Faraday from an author who gets better every time. Authentic detail, complex plot, real language and real people. Hurley is fast becoming Britain's Ed McBain. A gripping read and the only mystery is why no-one has yet put Faraday into a television series.
Denis Kilcommons, Huddersfield Daily Examiner.

Deadlight is the fourth instalment of Graham Hurley's critically-acclaimed crime series, set in his home town of Portsmouth. It's refreshing to find an author who doesn't beat about the bush when describing a crime scene - and although the details are quite graphic it didn't give me nightmares but left me wanting more. Deadlight is not what I call easy reading - but it was gripping right to the very end.
Alex Gordon, Peterborough Evening Telegraph.

Deadlight is an exceptional crime novel with an intelligently constructed plot, meticulous attention to the details of police operations, and an array of colourful and lifelike characters.
Waterstones Enigma Magazine.

Hurley is a fine novelist....and Deadlight is maintaining the tradition of a fine series.
Colin Channon, Portsmouth News.

Deadlight is a complex and skilfully plotted book and Hurley has a rare knack for understated characterisation that is extremely effective in building up people's lives. Deadlight is acutely observed and Hurley is quite simply a superb storyteller.
Chris Senior, Sherlock