Why I chose Teesside for Raine Kelly
A family connection and the places behind the investigations.
Read the article ↗Crime fiction from the Teesside coast
The tide brings them in.
Someone lays them out.
Dark secrets, unforgiving landscapes and a detective who refuses to look away. Discover the DI Raine Kelly series by Jo Sowerby.
Saltburn Pier photo by Jeffrey Pardoen / Archangel12
Meet your detective
Meet DI Raine Kelly.
DI Raine Kelly has spent years working the cases that other people would rather put behind them. She’s warm, stubborn, and not especially good at keeping quiet when something doesn’t add up.
Raine knows the coast well, from the beaches around Saltburn and Redcar to the old steelworks. But a missing girl from 1993 keeps pulling her back to a case her father never forgot.
Welcome to The Teesside Murders.
The first DI Raine Kelly thriller
The Tide Line Girls
“The tide brings them in. Someone lays them out.”
A girl lies beneath Saltburn pier at dawn, inside a ring of sea coal. Two weeks earlier, another girl drowned on the same coast. They called it an accident.
Then seventeen-year-old Ellie Tindall disappears. As the next spring tide approaches, a carnival badge leads Raine back to a case that ended her father’s career.
Find it on Amazon ↗ Read chapter one
Stories shaped by a place
The places behind the books.
From the sea to the hills, the landscape is woven into every investigation.
01 / THE COAST
Saltburn & Redcar
A pier, a stretch of dark beach and the North Sea beyond.
02 / THE WORKS
The steelworks
A changed landscape, old loyalties and the stories left behind.
03 / THE HILLS
Roseberry Topping
A familiar landmark can look very different when the fog comes down.
From Jo’s desk
Notes from the coast.
Book news, writing thoughts, stories in progress and the places that inspire them.
What makes me want to follow a detective?
A few thoughts on creating Raine and her team.
Read the article ↗