BOOK TWO · A HARRIET KEEL PREQUEL
The Angus
Leverage.
Different streets.
The same human weakness.
They sent her north to get her out of the way.
They should have remembered where she came from.
Available now on Amazon
HEAR THE STORY
A first listen.
A familiar world.
Try a short audio extract from The Angus Leverage before deciding where to follow the series next.
THE ANGUS LEVERAGE · AUDIO EXTRACT
Fifteen minutes.
A way into the story.
Audio extract coming soon.
The 15-minute MP3 sample will be added here when available.
THE STORY
Some crimes
wear a digital suit.
The money disappears through screens. The damage happens to people. Harriet Keel knows which one to follow.
After a politically inconvenient arrest, DCI Harriet Keel is moved from homicide into the basement of a cybercrime unit. It is supposed to be a punishment. Then the pension files begin arriving.
Retired teachers. Nurses. A widowed engineer who thought he was protecting his daughter. Their savings have vanished through a web of accounts and companies—and somebody has learned precisely what frightens each of them.
A Scottish company takes Harriet back north, where a violent bagman, a terrified administrator and the towns of her childhood turn an abstract financial trail into something she can walk through.
From Dundee and St Andrews to Arbroath and the windswept dunes of Montrose, she follows the habits that the dashboards miss: a receipt, a meal, a glance towards a window. Behind the respectable paperwork, fear is doing the real work.
And when the trail leads back towards comfortable rooms in London, Harriet faces the question that has made her inconvenient all her working life: how far will people go to protect a system that is hurting someone else?
Sharp, humane and threaded with dry humour, The Angus Leverage brings Harriet home—and reveals why she will always see a person where an institution sees a row in a spreadsheet.
A Harriet Keel prequel. Read Two Shadows first, then discover the history behind the detective.
HARRIET’S HOME GROUND
Wide skies.
Nothing stays hidden.
Six cinematic illustrations: from the green Angus glens and North Sea coast to a St Andrews confrontation and the comfortable rooms of London. Select an image to enlarge it.
01 · ANGUS GLENS & THE CAIRNGORMS
The country that made her
Alec Keel taught his daughter to notice the ground beneath her feet, the shoes on a stranger and the moment someone stopped telling the truth. The landscape is home. The habits stayed with her.
02 · SCENIC ARTWORK
Home ground
Green hills, granite and weather with its own opinion. An atmospheric portrait of Harriet’s Angus roots, where affection comes with high standards and very little fuss.
03 · FROM THE STORY
A door in Montrose
A locked caravan. Drawn curtains. Somebody frightened enough to run, but not far enough to escape. Harriet knocks—and starts with the person inside.
04 · ST ANDREWS
Three seconds
An old stone close. A knife. A man who mistakes size for control. Harriet’s father taught her better than that.
05 · ARBROATH
Salt, smoke and home
A family connection brings the investigation to Arbroath. Jamie insists on a smokie. Harriet insists it is perfectly possible to investigate without one. She takes it anyway.
06 · LONDON
Comfortable rooms
The trail leads south, towards expensive manners and carefully protected certainty. Harriet has never mistaken either for innocence.
THE WOMAN BEHIND THE BADGE
Kind. Difficult.
Very hard to move.
Harriet’s father called judo the gentle way. She has always had reservations. Her real strength is knowing where to apply pressure—and remembering who the pressure is meant to protect.
BY CHRIS HUGHES
Before the shadows.
The earlier case that deepens Harriet’s story. Explore the cover and the other books in the series.
A HARRIET KEEL THRILLER
Persistent pressure.
At the least comfortable point.
One earlier case. A deeper understanding of Harriet—and the human instincts that make her impossible to ignore.
Available now on Amazon
Begin with Two Shadows ↗Meet the younger Hamish in St Andrews ↗THE HARRIET KEEL READER CLUB
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