Made In Hull - The Geraghty Collection : Nick Quantrill

The first 3 JOE GERAGHTY NOVELS IN ONE SINGLE VOLUME

SAVE A MASSIVE 40% compared with buying the books in the series individually.

This bumper 530 page volume includes:

• Broken Dreams

• The Late Greats

• The Crooked Beat

BROKEN DREAMS

Joe Geraghty is used to struggling from one case to the next, barely making the rent on his small office in the Old Town of Hull.

Invited by a local businessman to investigate a member of his staff's absenteeism, it's the kind of surveillance work that Geraghty and his small team have performed countless times. 

The case soon becomes anything but routine when Jennifer Murdoch is found bleeding to death in her bed, Geraghty quickly finds himself trapped in the middle of a police investigation which stretches back to the days when the city had a thriving fishing industry.

As the woman's tangled private life begins to unravel, the trail leads Geraghty to local gangster-turned-respectable businessman, Frank Salford, a man with a significant stake in the city's regeneration plans. Still haunted by the death of his wife in a house fire, it seems the people with the answers Geraghty wants are the police and Salford, both of whom want his co-operation for their own ends.

With everything at stake, some would go to any length to get what they want, Geraghty included.

THE LATE GREATS

Hull’s most successful band of the 1990s is making a comeback…but not everyone is happy…

Having been convinced by their manager, Kane Major, to put their acrimonious break-up behind them and launch a comeback, New Holland, Hull's most successful band of the 1990s, is reforming.

Allowing one privileged journalist to document the process. Joe Geraghty is employed to act as a liaison between the different camps. What appears to be a straightforward assignment sees him neck deep in trouble when singer, Greg Tasker, disappears leaving behind a trail of people who wanted him out of their lives.

Geraghty has to choose sides and the investigation penetrates deeper into the city. As the rich and famous rub shoulders with the poor and vulnerable, the stakes increase.

Forced to keep his friends close but his enemies' closer still, the case could see Joe Geraghty lose everything.

THE CROOKED BEAT

When Joe Geraghty's brother Niall finds himself in financial trouble, it's only natural that he turns to the private investigator for help. But when it relates to a missing consignment of smuggled cigarettes, it's not so easily sorted.

A consignment of smuggled cigarettes have gone missing and as Joe is drawn into the murky world of local and international criminals around the busy port of Hull, Geraghty knows the only way to save his brother is to take on the debt himself.

As Joe attempts to find a way out of the situation, it becomes clear that the secrets and conspiracies he uncovers are buried deeply in the past and that the people he's investigating are willing to do whatever it takes to keep them that way.

As the pressure mounts we see Geraghty’s relationships with those closest to him start to unravel but Geraghty can't let his family down and when the past crashes into the present Joe is in until the bitter end.

The Crooked Beat  is the third urban thriller from Hull based writer ,Nick Quantrill, featuring private detective Joe Geraghty.

PRAISE FOR NICK QUANTRILL

“Set against the backdrop of the historic city of Hull, this book is extremely well crafted. With a believable lead character, who proves time and time again during the course of the story that he is just a normal guy, this novel is an example of the best type of realism in British crime fiction. The pace never drops, with continual action and plot strands effortlessly revealed as the story unfolds. This is a very cleverly created novel. Gritty, realistic and excellently written, this is surely the first in what promises to be an exciting new series.”

“A likable main character, surrounded by believable supporting characters & some nasty villains. The investigation element constantly built, with numerous surprise twists. A gripping and well-written blend of the Chandler-esque hardboiled PI novel, with modern gritty fiction. Loved it.”

“I was looking for a book where the main character did not come with a lot of baggage and I was not disappointed with Joe Geraghty.Two stories interwoven without having to resort to blood and gore to retain my attention. Characters involved were plausible and the story kept my attention.”

“In Joe Geraghty, we have a character to savour. Joe isn't perfect but he's essentially a good man, despite the things life has thrown at him. Flawed, tenacious, loyal and a romantic at heart, Joe gets by one day at a time, driven as much by misplaced guilt as the need to see justice done.”

“First of all, I don't like detective books. I've always found them to be either too predictable or so convoluted and pretentious, they've left me cold. Nick Quantrill's 'Broken Dreams', however, is none of these. In short, it is fantastic. That is not to say the plot isn't complex; it is. A tale of murder, missing persons, big business, and the regeneration of Quantrill's home city of Hull, all woven together so expertly and seamlessly as to leave this particular reader to finish the book in just over two days. And Quantrill's ability to create compelling characters - even the minor ones - and the crispness of his writing, with dialogue to match the great Elmore Leonard, merely adds to the superb realism of the piece.”

“This is a cracking book. It's the story of a man - Joe Geraghty - and a city - Hull - that have taken many a good kicking and are trying to get back on their feet. Realistic and romantic - in a Strummer way - it takes you by the lapels and drags you along from the beginning to the end.”

“Broken Dreams will prove an absorbing read for anyone anywhere, as it does  what proper crime fiction should do - conjure up a familiar world filled with villains, wrongdoings, and cold blooded murder!”

Author Nick Quantrill weaves an intoxicating web of secrets and lies using concise uncluttered sentences. Once again the city of Hull in East Yorkshire is fully realised adding further depth and substance to the novel. The Crooked Beat actually surpasses the previous novels in the series, showing a writer gaining in confidence and ability. This is a gritty crime mystery novel from a very talented author.

This is the best book by far in the excellent Joe Geraghty series and Quantrill's writing and story-telling gets better and better. As he steps in to help his brother, Joe is once again taken into the gritty Hull underworld but right until the last few pages you still don't know what is really going to be the outcome.

You can't help but love Geraghty for his tenacity and determination to get to the bottom of everything he does. The book twists and turns involving so many characters but Nick's writing just flows through it all. Bring on the next one please.

The power of Nick Quantrill's writing lies not in telling the reader what is happening, but in setting a scene and allowing the reader to become embroiled in its dynamics - a so-called hard man out of his depth when faced with implacable foreign criminals; the poignant interaction of Geraghty and an old lady, both knowing her missing son has been murdered but neither wanting to name the reality; a policeman living with a view of himself that can no longer paper over the cracks. This thought-provoking novel is based among real streets; the characters may be fictional, but the people they portray are very real indeed. If Nick Quantrill maintains the quality of his work he will doubtless become The Next Big Name in Noir Crime. Pick it up. You won't put it down.

Nick Quantrill succeeds in bringing to life the downbeat feel of the streets of Hull in this excellent novel. Very much like the city itself, his protagonist, Joe Geraghty, is attempting to build a new future from the remains of a problematic recent past. Geraghty is continually being pulled back by the past however, particularly when his brother and nephew become embroiled in the smuggling and subsequent theft of a consignment of cigarettes. Geraghty fights hard to protect his family from the worst excesses of local mobster, George Sutherland, uncovering past crimes and dark secrets in the process. The tension throughout the book is palpable, as is Geraghty’s fear-fuelled determination to keep his family safe. The fact that he does not have all the answers and blunders into a few knocks along the way makes his plight all the more realistic, less sure of ultimate success. The prose, dialogue and settings are all deeply evocative of a cold world, where humanity struggles to overcome the worst excesses of human nature, but more importantly, they make for a thrilling read. Great stuff.

Joe Geraghty has become a favourite literary character of mine. In this third (and best) novel his story grows. Nothing is as simple as it seems and the tension gradually cranks up - you begin to fear for the characters, not for their lives so much as their peace of mind. Nick is a tremendous talent and has made the city of Hull, a place I know well, a character in itself.