Best-selling author Nick Louth ready to welcome DI Jan Talantire

The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle by Nick Louth.

Bestselling thriller writer Nick Louth’s final instalment of the DCI Craig Gillard series, ‘The Body in Nightingale Park’, was released in August 2023 and he is now ready to launch his new eight-book series with a female lead character this time – Detective Inspector Jan Talantire.

Nick said: “It’s very exciting starting a new series, set in a new area with a new antagonist with a woman’s perspective.”

Set in north Devon, his first in the series, ‘The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle’, sees DI Talantire called to a cottage in Ilfracombe, where the female occupant is found dead. The woman, who had been renting the house for a few months, is well known locally.

Documents found at her house indicate her name is Ruth Lyle. The name means nothing to the young PC who found her, but DI Talantire knows that this cannot be true.

Fifty years earlier, 16-year-old Ruth Lyle was murdered in the exact same way, in exactly the same location. It is impossible for this to be the same woman, and yet all the records are a match.

With a brutal killer at large, DI Talantire must work quickly to solve the most complicated case of her career: how can a woman die twice?

Fans of Nick’s DCI Gillard series will remember that Talantire was introduced back in book three, ‘The Body in the Mist’, and her character has been developed over time to now be leading the series in her own right.

Nick said that writing from a woman’s perspective was not too dissimilar from writing from a man’s:

"There were occasions where I needed a woman’s perspective, so I asked my wife, for example, there’s a scene where Jan has to abandon a date to be called to the scene of the crime and I needed to know how a woman would tone down make up for a date to more work-appropriate make up,” he explained.

The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle will be published on Thursday May 2, and Nick will be signing copies in Boyes in Louth on Friday May 3 from 11am to 1pm.

Nick is also planning a tour of Devon to promote The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle. Further details can be found on his website at https://www.nicklouth.com/