It’s felt like a bit of an age since I actually wrote it, but Thin Ice is now released into the wild!

The latest Bill Kemp thriller continues the legacy of Desmond Bagley, borrowing his hero for a new, original adventure set in the Cold War-era territory of Iron Curtain conspiracies and espionage.

Bill – described by bestselling author Jeffrey Deaver as “part James Bond, part Philip Marlowe and all hero”, first made his appearance in Domino Island, which I completed for publication in 2019 from a first-draft manuscript discovered in Bagley’s archive.

When it came to the centenary of the author’s birth in 2023, I suggested to HarperCollins that there might be more mileage in this resilient, resourceful hero, and pitched a new book as a kind of tribute to the master. Fortunately, they thought it was a great idea, and Outback was born.

Now Bill gets his third outing and I get my second published novel. It’s already winning some lovely coverage. One five-star review of Thin Ice says: “Anyone looking for a thrilling novel to fill the Le Carré-sized hole in spy fiction could do no better than to look at Michael Davies.” Others have described the series as “unputdownable”, “gripping” and “a delight to read” with “plenty of twists and turns”.

Here’s the blurb:

When Bill Kemp’s contact washes up dead on the frozen banks of the Danube, where the Iron Curtain falls across the map of Europe, he’s thrown into the heart of a dangerous conspiracy that threatens to destabilise the continent. As winter closes in and Kemp faces a treacherous expedition across the Alps to Switzerland, his introduction to the sinister world of espionage proves as deadly as the bleak, beautiful mountains.