Jack Kiley

Created by John Harvey
Pseudonyms include Jonothan White

JACK KILEY is a former cop and ex-football hero turned London-based private eye, created by British crime writer John Harvey. You wanna know about the tone of the stories?

Gritty as a truckload of sandpaper, harder than a kick in the teeth and determined to set the world right. This excerpt, from “Promise,” the very first story written (but not the first published) pretty much tells you all you need to know:

“The way it would usually be: Kiley would be in the pub enjoying a quiet drink when someone would walk over to him or intercept him on his way to the bar. “Excuse me, but aren’t you  that bloke ·” And then it would start and Kiley would nod and grin and hear it all again,  some blurred version of it anyway, before signing whatever scrap of paper was within reach  and shaking hands. ‘Always wondered what happened to you.’  Well, now they knew. ·

Jack Kiley at forty. A tall man with a barely discernible limp as he carried his pint of Worthington back to his corner table. The face fuller now, the hair as thick, though touched  with grey; the eyes a safer shade of blue. His body softer, but not soft, some fifteen pounds  heavier than when he came from nowhere to score that hat trick in extra time. The F.A. Cup Quarter Final, 1989. A staple of pub quizzes throughout the land. Which non-league player, coming on as a substitute in extra time, scored a hat trick in… · But by then buzzers had  sounded, arms had been raised. Jack Kiley, who else?””

Pretty good, eh? Highly and heartily recommended.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mind you, Harvey’s no rookie. He’s a novelist, poet, dramatist, editor, and sometime publisher — a professional writer for some forty or so years. In 2007 he was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for Sustained Excellence in Crime Writing. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by the Universities of both Nottingham and Hertfordshire, and in 2020 was made an Honorary Fellow of Goldsmiths College, University of London.He’s the writer of the highly praised D.I. Charlie Resnick series (Charlie’s debuts, Lonely Hearts, was named by The Times as one of the 100 most notable crime novels of the last century, and in fact, Jack and Charlie have crossed paths a few times.The first Resnick novel, Lonely Hearts, was named by the London Times as one of the 100 best crime novels of the century, and his first novel featuring DI Frank Elder, Flesh and Blood, won the CWA Silver Dagger in 2004. He also edited the excellent 2003 anthology Men from Boys.

The author taught English and Drama in a number of secondary modern and comprehensive schools for several years before giving it up to become a full-time writer, and certainly made good use of his career change, pumping out a slew of books in all genres over the years. His first big sales (mostly under various pseudonyms) were mostly westerns, although he eventually wrote a few mens’ adventures (“mostly for series that bombed,” he confesses), as well as six books for the Doubles series of soft porn comedies as Jonothan White (6 books). During this time he also wrote four thrillers for British paperback house Sphere featuring private eye Scott Mitchell, his first attempt to transplant the American-style tough guy detective to England

UNDER OATH

• “(Harvey’s) best known character is Nottingham Detective. Inspector. Charlie Resnick, appears in four selections, but the strongest are the seven featuring PI Jack Kiley… Readers will hope Harvey eventually features Kiley in a novel.”
  — Publishers Weekly (December 2011)

NOVELS

• Cold in Hand (2008; a Charlie Resnick book, but Jack drops in) | Buy this book

SHORT STORIES & NOVELLAS

• “Truth” (September/October 2002, EQMM)
• “Smile” (2002, Birmingham Noir)
• “Chance” (2003, Men from Boys)
• “Favour” (2004, Like a Charm)
• “Promise” (2005, Murder is my Racquet)
• “Asylum” (2005, Crime on the Move)
• “Ghosts” (August 2008, Il Giornale; Autumn 2009, Ambit)
• “Trouble in Mind” (November 2008, EQMM; with Charlie Resnick) | Buy this book
• “‘Fedora” (2013, Deadly Pleasures (UK))
  Won the 2014 Crime Writers’ Association Short Story Dagger
• “Going Down Slow” (2014, digital)
• “Second Chance” (2014, Guilty Parties)
• “Dead Dames Don’t Sing” (2016, Mysterious Press) | Kindle it!
• “Blue and Sentimental” (2019, Ten Year Stretch)