A Murder of Crows marks debut for local writer

THE impacts of crime and policing on the community are explored in a new debut novel by local writer Digby Stevens.

A Murder of Crows is a crime thriller set in Ballarat.

Stevens has an extensive career background as a teacher and his book has been published by Ingram Spark with Kindle and Amazon as the distributors.

“I was 34 years as a teacher in the Catholic system. When I retired I had written a book but it was rough at that stage,” Stevens said.

“I thought the school I worked at was clean but I discovered that it had historic abuse as well and that really shook me.

“The book looks into the psychology. I draw that into the story. I don’t lecture about it. I started with a question which is what would happen if somebody took the law into their own hands and decided to ‘right the wrongs?’

“Many local locations are mentioned and this is the first of three books that I have written with a local detective named Jack Waters.

“The actual subject matter is very topical, being set within the context of the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Abuse.

“I have the two other books in this series already written and hopefully one will be out by Christmas and another by mid next year so there will be more for Detective Jack Waters to investigate, and they are still Ballarat-based.”

It is available online in Australia and overseas as Kindle, or hard copy with companies such as Collins Books, Amazon or Booktopia.

“It is available as a hard copy currently from Collins Books in Lydiard Street and Everybody Knows Books in Sturt Street,” Stevens said.

“I approached those two bookshops and they were nice enough to put those hard copies on their shelves. It’s a salute to the local bookshops who are willing to give local writers a go.”

Stevens said he has been on a roll with his writing so there’s also another stand-alone novel, of the same genre, which he has written as well.

“I set that book in Apollo Bay and it’s a different person investigating. I’ve got lots of other ideas planned out,” he said.