This week, I’m looking at the debut novel from an author who is new to me.
Terracotta is a novel by Chris Mawby.
While the name is new, the genre is familiar. Heist Crime.
However, that’s where the similarity ends, this one has an extra twist. There’s an element of the paranormal running through it, influencing the plot, the characters decision making and ultimately, the way it all turns out.
Read on to see what I thought of the story. And find out more about the author.
Here’s the description,
When professional thief Dirk Davis and his experienced team are hired to steal a pair of priceless Terracotta Warrior statues from the Chicago Museum, their long-held dreams of wealthy retirement seem just weeks away.
But what appeared to be a lucrative and straightforward job soon takes a dark and dangerous turn.
As events grow ever stranger, the crew are drawn into the ensnaring web of the paranormal and are faced with their toughest challenge yet.
They may be experts at not getting caught, but how do you escape a powerful, unseen enemy?
The book is available on Amazon, click here for your copy.
My thoughts.
Well, that was something a little different.
I’m a fan of a well-constructed crime story. The battle between the forces of the law and the criminal world can be a fascinating game of chess, with each battling for mastery.
Very often, the writer will get his readers rooting for the bad guys, as they attempt to prevail. Chris certainly does that here, with his thief, Dirk Davis. He has a solid crew, who he cares for and a strict moral approach to the business of stealing. Which makes him a good guy, in a way.
When his latest job, to steal a pair of Terracotta Warriors from an exhibition, is accepted, it all seems like a routine theft. But the fact that several groups of people are all after the same thing for very different reasons, complicates matters.
Add a dose of the paranormal and a side order of romance and you have the recipe for a fast-moving and compelling story.
Will Dirk and his crew succeed? The answer is revealed at the end of this thrilling adventure.
Highly recommended.
About the Author.
In a bid to tackle his overactive thought processes and depression, Chris Mawby created this story as a way of therapy for his mental health.
An avid role-play gamer with a love for history, the original story was created as four pages of bullet points for one of the games he played after seeing the Terracotta Army exhibition at the British Museum in 2008.
Writing was not a natural progression for Chris, he left school with a grade ‘E’ in English, and while he upgraded this to a ‘C’ some twenty years later, it was during a bad mental health episode in 2016 that his wife, Jacqueline, suggested writing to combat his overactive thoughts and anxieties, to help clear them. Which it did.
After seven years of writing and tweaking, the book was complete, opening the doorway to what to do next. He made the decision to release it as a way of self-achievement and hopefully, no matter how dimly, send a beacon to others to show there is light at the end of the dark tunnel when dealing with their own mental health problems.
A local of Daventry, Northants all his life, Chris is married with children and works as an administrator in the logistics industry. Now, with his first book under his belt, he wants to continue writing to aid his mental health by writing a sequel.
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