Best-selling Wigan author releases new fast-paced crime thriller with a twist
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Paul Finch has made his name as the writer of gritty and exciting police dramas, and his impressive pedigree also includes penning screenplays for The Bill and Dr Who books.
But while his latest novel is just as pacy and exhilharating as its predecessors, Never Seen Again, comes from a different perspective.
He has taken inspiration from his past and varied career as both a policeman and a journalist, bringing authenticity and strong sense of personal insight to his writing.
Mr Finch, who lives in Standish, said: “I had a wealth of first-hand experience to draw from.”
Having previously written for the Wigan Observer where he started his apprenticeship in journalism, moving on to the Manchester Evening News which he left in 1998, Never Seen Again pays homage to his ex-colleagues in journalism.
Mr Finch said: "I felt like I owed it to the lads and lasses I used to work with, to put them in the picture now, for a change.”
The plot is based around central character, who is a down-and-out-journalist having burned a lot of his bridges by taking it too far on a story, losing trust from contacts which results in a police investigation going catastrophically wrong, leaving one person dead and a young girl gone missing.
It was all the journalist’s fault. Years later after struggling as a freelancer and with work drying up, he gets wind that there’s a slither of hope that the girl may still be alive. He realises that his last shot at redemption is to solve this cold case and try to save the young girl’s life.
Mr Finch said: "I thought for a while that it would be fun to write about a journalist because, obviously, journalists don’t have the back-up that police officers have, they haven’t got legal powers to stop and search people and they haven’t got the government at their back so it puts a journalist at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with real criminals.
“I wanted to put an ordinary person in a perilous situation who was absolutely determined to crack the case. I thought it gave the story an interesting dynamic to see if an ordinary person, with no back up whatsoever, could solve a major crime syndicate.”
About the novel’s central character, Mr Finch said: "He’s completely ruthless in terms of his determination to get a story and plays underhand tricks, but he learns the error of his ways.”
Expanding on the meaning and subtext behind his new release, Mr Finch said: "Never Seen Again is really a redemption story, it’s not just an action thriller, it’s about someone finding their way back to normal life after really messing up.
"We’ve all done things in the past in which we regret and sometimes it’s very hard to make your way back form that. So, this is my version of that story.”
Never Seen Again is published by Orion and is available to buy online and in all good book shops.