Chasing the Dead: 1 (David Raker Mystery)

Product Information

The writing is beautiful and the plot so cleverly constructed I never guessed any of the twists * Sunday Times bestselling author of Local Girl Missing * Tim: I’ve just always grown up reading series characters, so the idea felt very natural to me. Authors like Michael Connelly were the reason I wanted to become a thriller writer in the first place, and I loved how Bosch changed from novel to novel. Each time he was slightly different. I also like the scope a series character gives you: you can build a world, and you can progress it, rather than having to build it all over again, every time. That’s not to say I wouldn’t like to have a bash at writing a standalone because I very definitely would, but I like the dynamics of a series. To me it’s like different seasons of a TV show: the events of one season impacts on those that follow, changing the character you get to know so well, in subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) ways. Tim: Actually, I’ve never really seen David Raker as a PI, at least not in the traditional sense. He has some of those traits, of course he does, but the reason I made him a missing persons investigator and not a cop, or an ex-cop, or an ex-cop that’s now a PI, is because there were huge authors already covering very similar ground and I wanted something just a little different. Missing persons has a very emotional core: as parents, as children, as friends, we can imagine what it must be like to see a person you love dearly vanish into thin air, never to be seen again. How do you begin to cope with that when you don’t know if that person is even dead or alive? It’s loss, but a skewed sense of loss, and one with no closure. You can’t move on if you don’t have a body to bury. I thought that would give the books, and Raker himself, a bit of heart. That’s plenty of hardness in crime fiction, and you need that element – and that’s in the books too – but I wanted Raker to have empathy for the people who came to him, and be a kind of sympathetic action man. For me, he’s a psychologist as much as an investigator. Tim: Absolutely. I’ve read crime fiction all my life. The very first thriller I ever read was Silence of the Lambs. I was about 14 at the time and it blew me away!

Macworld – Best apps, music, films, books, TV and podcasts of 2013 listed by Apple on iTunes". macworld.co.uk//. 17 December 2013 . Retrieved 2 January 2014. For as he digs deeper, he discovers that Alex's life was not the innocent one his mother believed. Buried in his past are secrets that were never meant to be found - and dark, dangerous men willing to kill to protect them. David Raker, a former journalist and now a missing persons investigator, who is still mourning for the loss of his beloved wife, is asked to look into disappearance and mysterious death of Alex Towne. During the investigation David bumped into much bigger mystery than just a disappearance and thereby put his life in acute danger. Ayo: Your books make for exciting read and it is clear that an enormous amount of research has gone into them...Weaver μας συστήνει το David Raker, πρώην δημοσιογράφο και νυν ερευνητή εξαφανισμένων προσώπων, ο οποίος καλείται να βρει ένα νεαρό άντρα ο οποίος εξαφανίστηκε προ 6ετίας κι όλως παραδόξως εμφανίστηκε προσφάτως, σα θύμα αυτοκινητικού δυστυχήματος. Οι έρευνές του τον οδηγούν σε πολύ σκοτεινά μονοπάτια, στα έγκατα μιας επικίνδυνης σέκτας, η οποία δεν θα διστάσει να φυλακίσει, βασανίσει ή ακόμα και σκοτώσει, προκειμένου να κρατήσει κρυφά τα ζοφερά μυστικά της. David used to be a journalist but stopped when his wife was diagnosed with cancer so that he could spend time with her. Instead, she nudged him towards solving missing person cases, and he was pretty good at it. After his wife dies, David grieves but still does missing persons. Enter Mary, an old friend whose son was killed in a car accident 5 years ago...or did he? Timweaverbooks.Com". Timweaverbooks.tumblr.com . Retrieved 1 September 2013. We had a very long and traumatic battle to have our daughter (and) a lot of Chasing the Dead – a lot of the beginning of that first book where (David Raker) is talking about how he feels about his wife – came out of that sense of loss.

Ayo: Raker is quite a troubled person with a rather sad personal life. Were you determined not to make him “perfect” or were you just more inclined to fashion him after more “iconic” PI’s whose lives are somewhat troubled? The Drum – Specsavers and Penguin team up to let crime fans create #youdunnit novella through social media". thedrum.com/. 13 September 2013 . Retrieved 18 November 2013. This is the third Tim Weaver novel I have read and I must say it was somewhat of a disappointment. In September 2015 I read and really enjoyed What Remains the sixth David Raker novel and in particular the London setting with the use of old wooden piers and the thrills and sounds of Victorian amusement arcades. Weaver's books get better each time - tense, complex . . . written with flair as well as care' Guardian ComputerAndVideoGames.com – About Tim Weaver". ComputerAndVideoGames.com . Retrieved 18 November 2013.

As the story progresses the emotional tension ramps up not only as he draws closer to solving the case but as David, haunted by the loss of his wife is faced with his growing attraction to neighbour and solicitor Liz who feels his job as a missing persons investigator stems from trying to “plug up the holes in the world”, to stop others suffering the pain, grief and helplessness he’s undergone with his wife Derryn’s death. Facing the truth of her words, David begins to put aside his loneliness and to live again, looking to the one woman who has comforted, encouraged and supported him. This is a relationship that will be interesting to follow in the other books in the series to see if it survives.

Weaver attended Norton Hill School [16] in Midsomer Norton, Somerset. He also describes himself as a "massive, massive football fan", [17] and supports Arsenal and Bath City F.C. Bibliography [ edit ] David Raker novels [ edit ] MY THOUGHTS: I was expecting great things from this book. I didn't get them. That may be because I was expecting great things. These days I find that my best reads are the ones that sneak up on me quietly, with little fanfare. Tim: Not as much as I’d like. I’ll be honest, when I’m writing a book, I don’t read at all. Not because I don’t want to, but because I find other books start interfering with my thought processes. I start to worry one of my characters is like one of theirs, or my story is the same as theirs, and it just makes everyone’s life – and I include agent, editor and family in this – a total misery. During my down time, I read as much as I can, though. I recently finished The Road on audio book, about five years after everyone else, and I’m currently ploughing through Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars. Some found that parts of the book could have been taken out and the book would have been the right length, and that some of Raker’s partner’s behavior was on the annoying side of things. Some found the novel not to be as good as the two installments before and after it. Some felt that they did not care about the characters and the story was not very believable to them.Tim Weaver book published Chasing the Dead". This is Somerset. 17 February 2010 . Retrieved 1 September 2013. Tim: I’m still trying to finish it, so it’s in a very rough state but basically the premise is this: Raker is approached by a woman whose husband got onto the Tube one morning – and never got off again. What I enjoyed most about “Chasing the Dead” was the strong sense of place, the willingness to confront the seedy and unpleasant without wallowing in it and mastery of pace shown in the writing and the plotting.