“Killers dot com” introduces police detective Tom Hamilton, an ordinary copper until some sixth sense takes over his life. He sees crimes as they happen whether he wants to or not. The more extreme the crime, the more vivid his visions! When two serial killers start on a spree of violent killings, the police hope Tom will be able to track them down, but before long the killings start to impinge of Tom’s own life and acquaintances, starting a race against time to find the culprits.

Killers Dot Com By Ian Hornby

Published by Fiction4All ISBN: 9781301477173

Short description

Two killers – one male, one female. Respectable in normal life, but when they leave that normality behind they fit the statistical patterns – sexual motivated with a firm belief the police are too stupid to catch them. Their killings start as random, opportunist acts of brutality. Killing because they can. Dark, evil Kieran sets a mysterious pattern, taunting the cops to try and find it.

Extended description

What drives serial killers to kill? Well, according to statistics, their main motive in the vast majority of cases is sexual. Serial killers often believe they’re much cleverer than the police and will never be caught. They sometimes single out police detectives and taunt them with confident clues, always staying one step ahead. And they often have obsessions with common themes: timekeeping, tidiness, religion, dates….

OK, those are the stats, but what drives Kieran and Chris to kill? He’s an ultra respectable deputy headmaster at an equally respectable public school in wealthy Cheshire, where everything runs like clockwork. Chris, meanwhile, is a carer for terminally ill patients at a hospice. But Kieran’s blood runs cold. He is pure, conscience-free evil. Since the loss of his wife to AIDS, he wants someone to pay, and someone will. Chris’s blood runs hot, needing ever-higher highs to get her past the pain of each working day. From the caterpillar of Chris emerges the b.. (Read more)

Adult-content rating: This book contains content considered unsuitable for young readers 17 and under, and which may be offensive to some readers of all ages

Ian Hornby is an occasional feature writer for iNews Cayman and is the owner of New Theatre Publications (NTP) one of the United Kingdom’s leading website stage plays publishing houses.

Mr. Hornby is a prolific award-winning writer of stage plays with over 50 published. The Cayman Drama Society performed two of his plays here in Cayman.

I asked Ian why he decided to write a book and a thriller. Ian’s plays are nearly all comedies/pantomimes.

This is what Ian told me:

“The book was written at a time when I was suffering from clinical depression, which is maybe part of why it’s a little dark in subject matter. I did a lot of research (a lot!) including spending a very interesting day in the company of the Chief Inspector of the CID in Cheshire, which was fascinating. He showed me through various stages of a few crime investigations from the trivial to the serious, how they track the crimes, investigate, use civilians within the police and so on. He also listened to descriptions of the crime in the book and corrected me on quite a number of things. It was an interesting experience in a number of ways, not least in the issues of TV/film/fictional image of police work versus the reality. The police view most of that with a wry smile, since the fictional “reality” is a long way from their reality. The problem was, had I changed the book to reflect what really happens in a police investigation, the reading public (a) wouldn’t be as entertained and (b) probably wouldn’t believe it. For example, the main “villain of the book, Kieran, goes out to buy two handguns. In my mental image of this episode he goes to a notorious area of Manchester and ends up having a scary experience (he is a school head-teacher and this is a real culture shock to him) with the type of criminal gang frequently seen in TV movies. The reality, according to the Chief Inspector, was that Kieran didn’t need to go where he went – he’s every bit as likely to be able to obtain a firearm in the more affluent areas of Cheshire. A scary thought indeed.

“My main motivator for the storyline includes the well-publicised fact that the vast majority of serial killers (the stats say something like 99%) are motivated in some – often twisted – way by sex. Cue the meeting of Kieran, a well-respected deputy head teacher at an expensive rural private school, and Chris, a carer at a hospice for the terminally ill. She is a tender, sympathetic woman who has to deal with the reality and inevitability of death each and every day, with the result she needs a break from the misery, turning each day into a wild, thrill seeking and unpredictable wild child to the extent we suspect she may be bipolar. Kieran, meanwhile, is pure evil under his respected exterior. They meet in an Internet Chat Room and instantly “click”, so arrange to meet. He manipulates her and the pair end up having a reckless car chase culminating in equally reckless sex. The following day, driving back, they come across a car accident on a rural road, where a woman has crashed her sports car and is badly injured. Dark Kieran completes the job, breaking the woman’s neck purely because he wants to know what it’s like to kill someone. Chris is at once horrified and fascinated; it is the ultimate thrill. The pair then embark on a series of apparently unrelated killings, quite convinced (and this is again backed up by statistics of serial killers) that he is far more intelligent than the police and they will never be caught. He even plans the locations of the murders to fit a geographical pattern (a pentagram), amused that the police will never be able to see it.

“Cue Tom Hamilton, at one time just an ordinary, everyday copper, until one day he starts to experience visions; he “sees” crimes through the eyes of the criminals, in some psychic sixth sense he can neither understand nor control. They just happen, and the more serious the crime the more vivid the visions. It has cost him his marriage – one night he awoke to find himself trying to strangle his beloved wife – so can no longer risk personal relationships. It also makes him a loner – an object of curiosity and ridicule. He is paired with Maddy, a criminal profiler being given one last chance to make good, by trying to channel Tom’s gift (or his curse, as he calls it) to solve crimes. Tom can “see” the killers’ pattern without being able to quite get there, so is always playing catch-up. Until one day he sees the criminal eyes in a lane he recognises – it is where his estranged wife lives…

“Whereas the villains of this book reach a sticky end, I believe the police characters have longevity. They are the kinds of characters who would go well in films and TV (albeit the graphic killings would have to be toned down a little) so have the basic framework of two sequels planned. I was hoping a mainstream literary agent and/or publisher would pick it up, and see little point in devoting another year’s work to the sequels unless they stand a better chance of being published. I know it’s good enough – a few years back a publisher called Arcturus (they publish kids’ books, puzzle books, recipe books and so on) were planning to launch a crime imprint and selected Killers Dot Com as one of three “launch titles”. They even came to my house to discuss it all. In the end, however, their board decided not to risk a new imprint in the economic climate we were in so dropped the whole project.

“I often say that the worst thing ever to happen to writers is the personal computer. That comment always raises eyebrows but I mean it. The ubiquity of word processing has persuaded the masses they actually do conform to the old cliché that everyone has a book inside them. They are all putting electronic pen to electronic paper and deluging the world with rubbish. I feel qualified to say that because in running NTP we are also sinking under the weight of semi-literate rubbish. The end result of all this is that agents and publishers are submerging – they simply have neither the time nor the manpower to read all submissions. They are making arbitrary decisions such as (and I know this one to be real) “today we are only opening grey envelopes”. Without question they are missing some gems, but they cannot hope to filter them, so descend into the safety of established authors or “celebrities” whose name alone will sell books no matter how good the writing.

“Then the new phenomenon – e-books. It is so easy, and completely free, to publish an e-book. Everyone is doing it, to the extent the book world is going the same way as TV – the “quality” we once had is no greater – it’s just spread out over 1000 TV channels instead of the 4 we used to get (Editor: in the United Kingdom). Advertising revenues are likewise shared, so the overall “average” quality has plummeted.

“And the gem that is “Killers Dot Com” is one of the casualties! Sure, it’s available as a self-published paperback and e-book, but that will never, ever get it onto the shelves of high street booksellers. So I hold out the vain hope that I will eventually spark some interest from one of the bigger publishers before physical paper books disappear forever and become collectors’ pieces.”

Ian Hornby – Playwright – www.scripts4theatre.com – www.dying4dinner.co.uk

“Killers dot com” is available both as an e-book (http://www.fiction4all.com/books/b5191-killers-dot-com.htm)

or hard copy (https://www.createspace.com/4040043).