Hell's Garden

by Jack Heaton

Jacob Daedalus, a promising lawyer for a major London law firm, is cruelly excised from the life he knows, an innocent casualty in the war on drugs.

Detective Inspector Rebecca Watson forces his employer to cast him out from everything he knows in the hope that Jacob will lead her to his father Jose Daedalus, a central figure in the European cannabis market and grower of large quantities of the finest grades of cannabis, revered throughout Europe.

Seamus Murphy, the son of Jose’s original business partner has assumed the main role in the cannabis empire, an unhinged and ruthless man who trusts no-one but who has one major advantage over his competitors in the cut-throat drug market – he knows where Jacob’s father is and he holds all the cards to ensure that Jose continues to supply him and only him.

Now Jacob, his peaceful existence forever destroyed, must survive in a race to eliminate Seamus and the deadly product that he has unleashed across Europe.

280 pages, Paperback

First published April 10, 2013

About the author

Do you ever have that itch in the back of your head that compels you to do something? That feeling that the world isn’t right unless you take some action, no matter how objectively foolish that is?

That was me, in October 2012. I was watching my industry go up in smoke, taking the skill set that I’d used to carve a fairly decent fifteen year career along with it. So, in between juggling childcare and a dramatic realignment of my life, I sat down and wrote a story that had been clamouring for a while to be told. It arrived, almost fully formed as Hell’s Garden over the next few months.

About me: I grew up in deepest, darkest Somerset. A fairly uneventful childhood led me to a University in the North of England, where I managed to cobble together a degree in Psychology and meet the best wife I could ever hope for. I then promptly began a career writing tenders and faceless documents for various government programmes, living out of hotels, spending a fortune travelling to clients. It was close, but even the soul destroying grind of eighty hour weeks writing five hundred page responses to other five hundred page specifications in anonymous hotel rooms did not take away my passion for stories.

Fast forward to today and I live in the Peak District with my wife and two wonderful (most of the time) young children. I have changed my lifestyle completely and the future path ahead of me is unknown and a little scary, but it also isn’t that horrible grey monotony that seemed to pervade my 20s and early 30s.

I have taken the bulk of the childcare over and actually made some flapjacks for the school cake sale the other day. I’m shocked at how unequal the split between men and women still is though – I’m normally the only male at the playgroup we go to.

When not juggling nappies and chasing after out of control two-year olds, I’m sinking back into the things I never had time for: cycling, cookery, walking. When funds allow, I also live for travel and I will also be using this website to expand my portfolio of travel photography.

So welcome, I hope you’re here because you found the story of Jacob and Rebecca interesting enough that you wanted to find out more. I promise to keep the website updated and I’ll try and hit that tricky balance to send out just enough tweets to keep everyone happy. I’ll also try and answer any emails that come my way.

Reviews

[Patricia Bergman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book free from Goodreads.

This is a thriller with a twist. Cannabis dealers and growers are featured as vicious killers, but the crops themselves become highlighted as part of the danger. I won't spoil the surprise. Just read it. I have a waiting list of friends who are asking to borrow my copy.

[Kate Butchart · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a slightly slow start, this book is packed with action and unexpected twists. The style is very readable, the characters believable and the plot absorbing. I literally couldn't put it down.