In the Shadow of the Tower

A Blackpool crime thriller featuring DI Layla Khan

A police procedural set in a faded seaside resort, where the town behind the tourist lights hides a killer with an unsettling signature. Gritty British crime fiction of institutional pressure, prejudice inside the force and a detective with everything to prove.

Two Girls Dead. One Signature. A Town That Looks Away.

Behind the slot machines, the cheap booze and the seafront lights, there’s a Blackpool the tourists aren’t meant to see. That’s the Blackpool DI Layla Khan polices.

A teenage prostitute is found murdered, and the killer has taken a sample of her blood. Then a second girl is discovered with the same MO. Both victims turn out to have been HIV positive. Did the killer know? Were they chosen for it?

Khan takes on the investigation whilst contending with a DS whose racism is barely veiled and a superior officer who championed her pro