Digby drops latest in Jack Waters series

BALLARAT’S Digby Stevens has just published book number three in his Detective Jack Waters series.

Killer Cop follows on from Stevens’ earlier A Murder of Crows and Ice and Fire.

Book one introduced readers to Jack. Book two dug deeper into his investigations, and now book three provides a denouement to the overall narrative arc, with Stevens promising that Jack will be back.

“Book two finished with a cliff hanger ending and book three starts with a cliff hanger ending,” said Stevens, a retired teacher who has set his Jack Waters series firmly in Ballarat and surrounds.

“It’s fun for me meeting Jack and learning about him as we go along,” he said.

“I’m writing about a real place and things that have and do happen here but meeting Jack is like meeting a new friend.

“I am trying to put us on a map. In the future I’m trying to draw in more stuff about the mining and the history. It spreads the net around Ballarat and places a bit further.”

While there is plenty that is based on fact in Stevens’ creations, Detective Jack Waters is a fictional character.

The latest book has been published through Amazon and is available online, and at Ballarat’s Collins Booksellers and Everybody Knows Books, with a couple of retailers

also stocking it in Melbourne and Colac.

As he now prepares to attend Clunes Booktown Festival over 21-22 March to meet and mingle in one of the author’s tents, Stevens has already got a fourth book, of the same genre but featuring a different lead protagonist, all ready to publish.

“Book four is a completely different detective and it’s set in Apollo Bay,” he said.

“And now I’m already concentrating on book five which will be back to Jack again, and still set in Ballarat. It’s going to be possibly a little bit raunchy.

“It involves a cultural aspect of Ballarat.”