Jon Barton is a new author to me so I was unsure what to expect from DIVE. However, I certainly wasn't disappointed. Naomi Harding is held accountable after three of her colleagues are killed during a raid she was leading. Her punishment is to be side-lined to the Marine Policing Unit, or ‘frogmen’, whose main aim is to dredge up dead bodies from the Thames and pass them on to the ‘real’ police.

Twenty publishers turned ‘Dive’ down, and it went as far as acquisitions elsewhere before Joffe Books acquired it. What kind of reactions have you had to your book? Each time David pulls a new victim out of the water, he fears it’s his estranged fifteen-year-old daughter Lex. She went missing after they had a fierce argument and he hasn’t heard from her since. Without a doubt, the biggest distraction I face is my four-year-old daughter, Amelie. She will come into my office where I write, climb on the desk, attempt to persuade me to play with her and quite often succeeds.Being a full-time writer means working from home and being able to spend a lot of time with her, so I really can’t complain. She will soon have a rival for my attention, though, as we’re expecting a second baby in March. I’m trying to get as much writing done as possible before our lives are turned upside down once more.I hope readers feel like they’ve read an entertaining and intriguing mystery featuring twists, red herrings, and characters they’ve not encountered in crime fiction before. Jon was excellent in encouraging, listening and making me feel at ease without judgement. I’m confident I’ve progressed my writing and achieved from where I started.” — Mary O’ Hagan

I would like to thank Netgalley and Joffe Books for an advance copy of Dive, a police procedural featuring Met DI Naomi Harding and Marine Police Sergeant David Cade. Police diver David Cade lives by a simple rule: pull out the bodies and move on. Naomi can't abide that. Her whole career, she's wanted to fight the good fight. But circumstances have sent Naomi to the Marine Police. You’ve taken multiple courses with us including Edit & Pitch Your Novel and Write to the End of Your Novel. How did your time studying with us impact your writing journey? Then a briefcase is discovered in the same stretch of water where the dead girls were found, and suddenly the higher-ups at CID, including Naomi’s rival, Detective Chief Inspector Shannon Baines, start showing an interest.

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He had spent four years working on the novel off and on at this point, so it was tough not to take this personally. When you know you have written the very best book that you are capable of, and people still do not like it, that can take some getting used to it. An excellent, well written and researched thriller . . . One of my best reads this year!’ Martha B.

David Cade is a workaholic diver for the Marine Policing Unit in Wapping. He struggles to be a father figure to his teenage daughter Lex due to a tragic event that still affects them both. It’s only when Lex disappears, and bodies surface on the river matching her description, that he starts to suspect something more sinister is going on.

Sam Blake

A high-flying detective recently tossed out of the CID. A police diver with an imploding home life. And a case which could get them both killed.

Jon was excited by the potential of this murkier world of policing which puts the Thames right at the heart of the action. The river is the UK’s largest crime scene, since it holds macabre secrets and has got a habit of exposing them. It felt like it would make for the perfect setting for a thriller, and a chance to explore perspectives that he had never seen in crime fiction before. A great motivator for Jon is that he loves telling stories. Loves breaking them, finding a way into them, spending time with the characters. He writes since he often struggles expressing himself. Writing is a way to articulate this lived experience. Then this briefcase is found on the same stretch of water where these dead girls were found, and all of a sudden the higher-ups at CID, which includes Naomi’s rival, Detective Chief Inspector Shannon Barnes, begin showing an interest. Something big here is happening. David and Naomi must work together if they're going to solve the dead girls' murders and find Lex. Then they uncover something that will threaten to blow the case apartThen, a briefcase is discovered in the same stretch of water, and suddenly the higher-ups at CID, including Naomi's rival, Detective Chief Inspector Shannon Baines, start showing an interest.