Belinda Bauer Books In Order

Publication Order of Jonas Holly/Exmoor Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Belinda Bauer is a famous writer of crime novels, who was born in 1962 in England. She also spend some of her childhood years in Africa. Finally Belinda settled in Cardiff and lived also in Wales more time than anywhere else in her life. She is also attended Welsh Academy as a member. Bauer didn’t have a very easy life. In fact, she had to experience a sudden dive from a wealthy home, where she lived with her parents in South Africa to a poverty west country house in Britain, when she returned there with her mother. But she actually had some good opportunities there. She was trained as a journalist at Cardiff University and worked in Cardiff as a journalist for 7 years, which was incredibly valuable for her. Right from when she was a trainee, her copy was going straight to the news desk of every national paper. She actually loved Cardiff and stayed in the city for some years after she completed her course. Belinda Bauer started her career by writing as a journalist before she won a screenwriting competition run by Bafta in 1990s for her first screenplay.

According to Belinda Bauer, crime is actually the story of how lives of people can change by the misdeeds of others. From the pensioner who may loose his savings in a crash in stock market, to the refugee, to the mugging victim. Life is a river and crime is the rocks. And it is just when people hit a rock, that they capable of finding out whether they are the ones of life’s swimmers or sinkers. The famous writer focuses on survival and recovery – the rock itself is almost incidental.

Blacklands (2010)

The novel Blacklands was her first novel and was published in January 2010. It actually featured one of the twelve crime novels in Waterstones’ Fresh Blood promotion and won the Gold Dagger in 2010 for Crime Novel. But this crime novel of Belinda also shocked some people. It is unsparing in tis description of the poverty, spiritual and physical, of the boy’s home. More specifically, Blacklands tells the story of a game of cat and mouse between a 12 year old boy, by the name Steven, and Arnold Avery, a serial killer and an abuser of children, who murdered Steven’s Uncle Billy, when he was 11 years old, twenty years ago. The book tells all about the efforts of the little boy, who tries to dig holes on Exmoor, because he really wants to find the buried body of his uncle. Every single day, Steven, after school, continues his digging, while his classmates go for football matches. Instead, he goes to continue his digging, in order to rest the ghost of the uncle, whom he never met and disappered at the age of 11 and was assumed that was a victim of the famous killer Arnold Avery. The only person who is not convinced that he isn’t dead is his mother and Steven’s Nan. In fact, she waits for his son to come back home and always watching out of the window in case he returns. Steven wants to heal all these wounds of his family before it’s too late and he thinks that if he presents to his grandmother the body of her murdered son, he’ll achieve his aim. So, he decides to make what he thinks a logic action and he decides to send a letter to the notorious killer Arnold Avery, who is in jail. This is where begins a dangerous game between a dangerous killer and a desperate child, who wants to find out the truth. This book is probably the most personal one for Belinda Bauer, because it reflects some of her own memories and experiences of her childhood years. Belinda wanted to write about the way a horrible crime can pass through the generations like ripples on a pond.

Darkside (2011)

Belinda’s second story, Darkside, was published in early 2011 by Bantam. In the middle of winter time, the people who live in a peaceful place, Shipcott, are shocked when they learn about the murder of an old woman in her bed. Bauer presented a realistically harsh picture of English village life in the fictional Shipcott. It’s a small village, where no one can go by unnoticed. So, after this peculiar murder, a policeman of this town Jonas Holly is shocked by this mysterious murder. In fact, he wonder how can one murdered the old lady, without leaving any trace? And he is determined to catch the brutal killer and at the same time he has to protect his terminally ill wife, Lucy. But he is sedelined when the investigation is snatched from him by a senior detective and he doesn’t want to admit to his wife that he has been side lined. It looks like that his first investigation for murder may have closed befor it’s even begun. But this is not true, because someone is sending him anonymous notes, in which he blames Jonas for this tragedy. This person knows all he moves that Jonas makes. So, he returns in the case again, because he has to find out who is hunting who. The heart of this novel is Jonas Holly and his love for his wife. According, to Belinda, this was a heart-rending, twisted and bloody tale with moments of black humour, that was in fact a complex to write.

In fact, 30% of all the novels that are sold each year in the United Kingdom are crime stories, which means that 17 million physical books are sold per year.Belinda’s change paid off when Blacklands won the British Crime Writers’ Association’s Gold Dagger Award in 2010. The next two novels that she wrote, Daskside and Finders Keepers were also shortlisted. In 2012 Belinda Bauer won another Award (CWA Dagger) for her entire work as a writer. Last year, in 2015, The Shut Eye novel of Belinda is longlisted for another CWA Dagger. Many other of her crime novels won awards and Belinda Bauer is shortlisted again with the new The facts of life and death novel . Now Belinda is working on her seventh crime novel.

One Response to “Belinda Bauer”

1. Jane Fisher: 1 year ago

   I love these books just finished reading the final one! When is a new one coming out? The characters are so well drawn and the plot lines quite scary.

   Reply