#Blogtour - A Shadow on the Lens by Sam Hurcom

“The Postmaster looked over my shoulder. As I turned to look I saw a flicker of movement from across the street. I felt unseen eyes peer at me.

He walked away without another word. I watched as he climbed onto his bicycle and sped away down the street. I turned back and looked over my shoulder.

Someone had been watching us.”

1904. Thomas Bexley, one of the first forensic photographers, is called to the sleepy and remote Welsh village of Dinas Powys, several miles down the coast from the thriving port of Cardiff. A young girl by the name of Betsan Tilny has been found murdered in the woodland - her body bound and horribly burnt. But the crime scene appears to have been staged, and worse still: the locals are reluctant to help.

As the strange case unfolds, Thomas senses a growing presence watching him, and try as he may, the villagers seem intent on keeping their secret. Then one night, in the grip of a fever, he develops the photographic plates from the crime scene in a makeshift darkroom in the cellar of his lodgings. There, he finds a face dimly visible in the photographs; a face hovering around the body of the dead girl - the face of Betsan Tilny.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sam Hurcom was born in Dinas Powys, South Wales in 1991. He studied Philosophy at Cardiff University, attaining both an undergraduate and master's degree. He has since had several short stories published and has written and illustrated a number of children's books. Sam currently lives in the village he was raised in, close to the woodlands that have always inspired his writing.

A SHADOW ON THE LENS is Sam's debut novel.

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Metropolitan Police Special Investigator Thomas Bexley, a forensic photographer whose self proclaimed ‘keen eye for detail when examining crime scenes, and a surprising talent for piecing together evidence, brought many a guilty man and woman before judge and jury’, travels to a small village in south Wales to assist with a murder enquiry. Bexley, fresh off a successful case in Oxford, is rather arrogant and seems to expect this to be a simple case. He is fairly dismissive of the village, ‘quite pleasant, if not a little inert’, and of the village people who dress ‘in none of the high fashions of central London’ - Bexley expects to tie this up quickly and return to the metropolis. Things do not go as Thomas expects.

Sam Hurcom’s debut is a superb procedural with an interesting, if a little unsympathetic, central character, a confident investigator whose faith in himself and his abilities is shaken as he is drawn deeper into the fate of Betsan Tilney and the feeling that things are spiralling beyond his control. There are some really interesting supporting characters and several stunning twists.

Hurcom captures the mannerisms and speech patterns of the times, the deference of many of the villagers to authority. The mannered, first-person prose has the feel of a late 19th or early 20^th century gothic novel while retaining a modern readability. The novel is a little Sherlock Holmes, a little The Wicker Man and there are a few scenes which are really scary and skin-crawlingly creepy, scenes Stephen King would be proud of. 

A SHADOW ON THE LENS is a thrilling read and, as a debut, it makes me intensely anticipate where Sam Hurcom, and Thomas Bexley, go next.

Thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for the invitation to take part in the BlogTour and to Orion Fiction for the review copy.

Follow the author @SamHurcom

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