Blood Rival

Following the suspicious death of notorious underworld gangster, Lee Royle, his widow Jo and Eddie - the rival gangster Jo has been having an affair with - try to solve the murder.

＂It happened at a place where three roads meet.
Junction 1A of the M25. There’s a killer on the road.＂

Lee Royle, the notorious ’King of Kent’, is dead, killed in a brutal act of road rage. But was this a random attack, or was it a premeditated move in a deadly game of betrayal and revenge?

Three lives are set on a collision course: Jo Royle, Lee’s disillusioned and embittered wife, hiding secrets that could kill; Eddie Pierce, Jo’s ambitious new lover, determined to move up the criminal ranks; and Commander Ray Spinks, a corrupt cop with his own claim on Lee’s legacy -and no intention of letting it slip through his fingers.

Caught between lust and loyalty, ambition and guilt, each will risk everything to uncover or bury the explosive truth behind Lee’s death. Because this wasn’t just a murder. It was a reckoning.

Blood Rival is a modern retelling of an ancient story, where Greek tragedy meets neo-noir. A compulsive psychological thriller of forbidden desire, family secrets and fatal ambition.

Jake Arnott is a novelist and Screenwriter whose bestselling debut The Long Firm was made into a four-part series for BBC2 in 2004, starring Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Strong. The series was nominated for the Best Drama Serial and Best Actor Awards at the BAFTAs.

Subsequently, his second novel, He Kills Coppers, was made into a critically acclaimed three-part series for ITV1, starring Rafe Spall and Kelly Reilly.

Harry Stark, the charismatic anti-hero of The Long Firm, also appeared in his follow up novels, Truecrime, Johnny Come Home and the highly acclaimed The Devil’s Paintbrush in 2009.

His most recent novel, The Fatal Tree, was published in 2017 and is being developed for television.