Graham Hurley smiling holding hand to ear

Doctor of Letters

Prolific crime and thriller novelist with an acclaimed series set in Portsmouth.

Graham Hurley is a much-published novelist, currently writing two successful ongoing series. 

The Spoils of War is an ongoing collection of loosely-linked thrillers set in unexplored pockets of the Second World War. The launch title, Finisterre, appeared in 2016 and was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, while the latest addition, Katastrophe, was published in hardback in July 2022. The books have won considerable praise, including in the Daily Telegraph, the Sun and the Daily Mail. The Times described Last Flight to Stalingrad as ‘historical fiction of a high order’.

A separate series of thrillers features Enora Andressen, an Anglo-Breton actress, and draws a bead on the uglier aspects of contemporary life. The latest of the six books, Lights Down, was published in the summer of 2022. The series has found a buoyant readership in both the UK and North America. The fifth book in the series, Intermission, returned the action to Portsmouth, the setting for Graham’s earlier 12-book series of crime novels featuring D/I Joe Faraday.

The D/I Faraday series earned international praise for its exploration of a city under siege. Seven feature-film-length adaptations for French television, Les Flics sur les Docks, won a top-five audience.