Before the Dawn

Only one person can help crack this case―but he’s also the prime suspect.

DC Sophie Jones was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Viciously bludgeoned one night in a dark alley, she is left fighting for her life in hospital, leaving no clues as to why she was there or what might have motivated the attack.

For Detective Karen Hart, fiercely protective of her young protégée, this is already deeply personal: an attack on Sophie is an attack on the whole team. When a car workshop near the crime scene is linked to local mobster Quentin Chapman, the man Hart has spent years trying to bring down, it’s hard not to jump to the most obvious conclusion.

But Chapman not only denies any knowledge of the incident―he asks for Karen’s help. Someone is killing his associates, and he fears he might be next. With little else to go on, Hart has no choice but to rely on her sworn enemy and his underworld connections for valuable information. Can she trust Chapman to tell her the truth―or will this shady collaboration be the last case of her career?

Born in Kent, D. S. Butler grew up as an avid reader with a love for crime fiction and mysteries. She has worked as a scientific officer in a hospital pathology laboratory and as a research scientist. After obtaining a PhD in biochemistry, she worked at the University of Oxford for four years before moving to the Middle East. While living in Bahrain, she wrote her first novel and hasn’t stopped writing since. She now lives in Lincolnshire with her husband.