Shadow Line: Was Mick an undercover cop pretending to be a criminal or a criminal pretending not to be? In the shadows it was hard to tell. (The Covert Lines Series) - Softcover

Harris, V. J.

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798278818632

Publisher: Independently published, 2026

Synopsis

Shadow Line is, at its core, a novel about:

• The psychological corrosion of long-term undercover work
• The erosion of identity until only masks remain
• The institutional betrayal of those willing to sacrifice the most
• The devastating personal cost of a life lived in shadows
• The slow, painful reconstruction of a broken man
• And the faint possibility of redemption when truth is finally spoken aloud

Brummie, Mick Dorrington, was once a successful undercover police officer. Whenever the job demanded someone to step into the shadows, Mick was the one who volunteered. No matter how dangerous, how dirty, or how much it would cost him. That, more than his talent, was why they kept calling his name. But a lifetime lived in the shadows leaves scars, and when a long-term infiltration into a Liverpool drugs gang is abruptly shut down, Mick learns just how steep the personal cost can be.

Cast aside by the service he devoted his life to, manipulated by senior officers he trusted, and betrayed by the woman he should never have loved, Mick is left to rebuild a life that no longer feels like his own.

Flawed, bruised, but still governed by a stubborn sense of right and wrong, he reinvents himself on society’s margins—part investigator, part protector, part ghost—haunted by the lines he crossed and the man he might have become.

Years later, Mick is dragged back into the darkness when Aiden, a young man trapped in a Liverpool sex-trafficking ring, crosses his path. Protecting him forces Mick to confront violent criminals, buried truths, and the one name from his past he hoped never to face again. And beneath it all lies the secret the police once buried to protect themselves.

Shadow Line is a gritty, intimate noir thriller about the psychological toll of deep-cover work, the corrosive weight of institutional betrayal, and one man’s fragile attempt to do right—even when the shadows have already claimed too much of him.

Edition details

• Publisher: Independently published
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798278818632
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 202
• Editor: Plimmer John F