Jake Arnott is an award-winning novelist and dramatist whose bestselling debut The Long Firm was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was adapted as a BAFTA award-winning BBC TV drama series starring Mark Strong and Sir Derek Jacobi. His second novel, He Kills Coppers was made into a critically acclaimed ITV1 series, starring Rafe Spall and Kelly Reilly. Along with his third book, truecrime, this trilogy was awarded the Crime Writers Association Dagger in the Library. His subsequent novels include Johnny Come Home, The Devil’s Paintbrush, The House of Rumour and The Fatal Tree.
His new novel, Blood Rival, is published 16 October 2025 by Datura Books. To pre-order go to:
Datura Blood Rival landing-page
For an exclusive extract on the Literary Hub website CrimeReads go to:
BLOOD RIVAL
‘It happened at a place where three roads meet. Junction 1A of the M25, heading east towards Gravesend. There’s a killer on the road.’
A shocking act of road rage sparks off a brutal gang war, drawing two lovers into a fatal dance of forbidden desire in a deadly struggle for power and loot. Blood Rival is a fast-paced psychological thriller, a reworking of an ancient story with a dark secret at its heart that could destroy its protagonists. Greek tragedy meets neo-noir in a compulsive tale of ambition, betrayal and doomed love.
What they are saying about Blood Rival.
‘Only Jake Arnott could divine a course through the labyrinth of time and unsolved crime to the compulsive and revelatory Blood Rival – a riddle of a novel about power and morality, wrapped in the enigma of contemporary gangland and hidden in the vast psycho-geography of Britain’s badlands. Crime and punishment never had a more stylish or astute oracle.’ Cathi Unsworth, author of Bad Penny Blues.
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