David Young's Blog

New events and appearances have been added for 2022 in Hull, Newcastle and Beverley to support the publication of Death In Blitz City on 7th July 2022.

For details, please click the 'Events' tab above.

Death In Blitz City, my new crime thriller novel set in WW2 Hull, will be published in the UK on July 7th 2022 in paperback, e-book and audio versions. This is my first novel since the end of the six-book Stasi series. Here's the publisher blurb ...
1942. Hull, East Yorkshire - It is the most heavily-bombed city outside of London - but for the sake of national morale the Hull Blitz is kept top secret. Only the politicians in Whitehall and Hull's citizens themselves know of the true chaos.

Newly-posted Inspector Ambrose Swift cannot believe the devastation he finds. But for Swift and his two deputies - part-time bare-knuckle boxer Jim 'Little' Weighton and Dales farmer's daughter Kathleen Carver - it's murder, not the war, that's at the forefront of their minds.

When a series of sadistic killings is wrongly blamed on locally-stationed black American GIs, Swift, a one-armed former WW1 cavalryman who tours the rubble-strewn city on a white horse, soon discovers these are no ordinary murders. The fetid stench of racism, corruption and perversion go to the very top. And for Swift, Weighton and Carver, finding the real killers means putting their own lives at risk - because powerful forces in the US and Britain cannot let the war effort be undermined. Not even by the truth.

The Stasi Game, the sixth and final instalment of the series that began with Stasi Child, is published as an e-book in the UK on the 12th November 2020, with the paperback following on 31st December 2020.

The novel leaps forward three years from Stasi Winter and sees Müller, Tilsner and Schmidt embroiled in a new case in Dresden in 1982. But what soon becomes clear is that there are links to WW2 -- not just in Dresden itself, so devastated by Allied bombers, but also in another heavily-bombed city: the British port of Hull.

Müller et al uncover a web of secrets dating back to the 1940s which those in power are prepared to do anything to keep hidden.

For a limited period only, get STASI CHILD -- where it all began -- for just 99p on both Amazon Kindle and Kobo in the UK.

Amazon Kindle link here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stasi-Child-Chilling-Thriller-Oberleutnant-ebook/dp/B010MENI9S

For a limited time only, Stasi Winter and Stasi 77 have been reduced to just 99p on Amazon Kindle UK. So you can get my two most recent novels for less than £2. What a bargain! 

Stasi Winter here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stasi-Winter-gripping-crime-thriller-ebook/dp/B07WN8V6PN

Stasi 77 here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stasi-77-David-Young-ebook/dp/B07HHB79JR/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=stasi+77&qid=1583078168&s=digital-text&smid=A1G3UP32AZJ14F&sr=1-1

The 5th book in the Karin Müller 'Stasi' series -- Stasi Winter -- will be published in the UK by Zaffre on January 9th, 2020.

It sees a return to the Rügen setting of Stasi Child, and also a return for the 'Stasi Child' herself, Irma Behrendt -- now four years older, and a young woman.

But wrap up warm! It's set in East Germany's catastrophe winter of 1978/79 -- with snow drifts as high as houses.

Stasi 77 is coming. The fourth and latest of David's East German crime thrillers featuring Major Karin Müller - set in 1977 but with links to the dark days of 1945 - will be published on April 18th 2019 in the UK.

David will be appearing at the Getafé Negro crime festival near Madrid on a panel talking about perspectives in European crime fiction on Friday 20th October at 8pm.

Stasi Child has won the 2016 Crime Writers' Association Endeavour Historical Dagger for 2016. This is the most prestigious award for historical crime fiction in the UK.  David was presented with his Dagger award by the Sunday Express and Daily Telegraph crime critic Jake Kerridge at a glittering gala dinner in London. Stasi Child was the unanimous choice of the judging panel.

Stasi Child has been longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award. It's one of only five debut novels longlisted, and is up against more established names such as Val McDermid, Mark Billingham and even JK Rowling (in her Robert Galbraith crime-writing guise).

It means the book will be featured with the other longlistees (is that a word?) in all of WH Smith's bigger stores.

Click here for the full details of the longlist.