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Review: Exquisite writing with an eye for detail makes this a superb stand-alone story that’s also part of a series. If you haven’t read the other two then I’m sure it won’t be long until you do.

Lord Harry Paterson, Sheriff of the County of Yorkshire, is coerced back to work for the British Security Services after witnessing the macabre death of a beautiful, young woman at a grouse shoot hosted by his friend and ex-fellow army officer, Viscount Winston Bottomly.

Unbeknownst to Harry, the woman – the Viscount’s fiancée – had stolen a top-secret file from the French consulate in London, containing information about an innovative encryption method called post quantum signal cryptography.

With the power to endanger every communication method in use between allied nations, the document – in the wrong hands – could completely change the balance of power between East and West.

To avoid a technological threat to world safety, Harry is instructed to find the file and eliminate all those who have seen its contents. But does he still have what it takes to get the job done?

From Daniel Kemp:

I started to write this book in 2019, shortly after the publication of my last story which completed the series named Lies and Consequences. With that series finished, my mind turned to the first two novels I had written in a series called Heirs and Descendents.

Those two: The Desolate Garden and Percy Crow, both featured Lord Harry Paterson who was, perhaps, the reason I started writing.

When I had made the start along this path I had no intention of writing any book into a series, but with the other one finished it seemed logical to me, who sometimes thinks logically, to add more adventures featuring Lord Harry.

Well, off I set only to find my health had other ideas. I kept picking up the story only to have another stay in a hospital to contend with, one where writing a story was out of the question. So both issues, my health and the telling of a story, took time.

This story finished with me in the 0ctober of 2022, three long years where I could not see an end. It was my publisher who wanted the manuscript I sent to him to be divided into two. This I did and in consequence, the first part is here, hence the title – What Comes Before.

Only time will tell if I have any more stories left inside my heart worth telling. I have my eye on one and hope to be able to write that, but if not, then this story along with the other half will be on what I’m judged.

Please be kind in your assessment of this weary storyteller and as I say near the beginning of this book, wait until the end before arriving at your verdict.

Meet Daniel Kemp:

Daniel Kemp’s introduction to the world of espionage and mystery happened at an early age when his father was employed by the War Office in Whitehall, London, at the end of WWII. However, it wasn’t until after his father died that he showed any interest in anything other than himself!

On leaving academia he took on many roles in his working life: a London police officer, mini-cab business owner, pub tenant and licensed London taxi driver, but never did he plan to become a writer. Nevertheless, after a road traffic accident left him suffering from PTSD and effectively out of paid work for four years, he wrote and self-published his first novel —The Desolate Garden. Within three months of publication, that book was under a paid option to become a $30 million film. The option lasted for five years until distribution became an insurmountable problem for the production company.

All seven of his novels are now published by Creativia with the seventh – The Widow’s Son – completing a three book series alongside: What Happened In Vienna, Jack? and Once I Was A Soldier. Under the Creativia publishing banner, The Desolate Garden went on to become a bestselling novel in World and Russian Literature in 2017. The following year, in May 2018, his book What Happened In Vienna, Jack? was a number one bestseller on four separate Amazon sites: America, UK, Canada, and Australia.

Although it’s true to say that he mainly concentrates on what he knows most about; murders laced by the mystery involving spies, his diverse experience of life shows in the short stories he writes, namely: Why? A Complicated Love, and the intriguing story titled The Story That Had No Beginning.

He is the recipient of rave reviews from a prestigious Manhattan publication and described as—the new Graham Green—by a highly placed employee of Waterstones Books, for whom he did a countrywide tour of book signing events. He has also appeared on ‘live’ television in the UK publicising that first novel of his.

He continues to write novels, poetry and the occasional quote; this one is taken from the beginning of Once I Was A Soldier

There is no morality to be found in evil. But to recognise that which is truly evil one must forget the rules of morality.

Please click HERE to find What Comes Before on Amazon.