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Oliver Harris is a British author of mystery and thriller books.

He is known for writing the Elliot Kane thrillers, and D.C. Belsey book series.

Originally from north London, he has an MA in Shakespeare Studies from UCL, and an MA in creative writing from UEA.

Oliver also has a Doctorate in antiquity with a focus on Jacques Lacan's works at Birkbeck's London Consortium. Additionally, he has also made academic presentations on the topic of obscenity at the Hayward and explored conspiracy theories at Ghent's Vooruit Arts Centre.

Oliver has over the years worked in clothing warehouses, PR companies and as a TV and film extra.

He has contributed to research activities within the archives of the Imperial War Museum, and is a regular reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement.

Oliver, who is represented by Veronique Baxter at David Higham Associates, currently resides in Manchester, where he is a part-time lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.

More about Oliver Harris

Genres: Mystery, Thriller

Born: 1978

United Kingdom

Website: https://www.oliverharris.co.uk/

D.C. Belsey

  1. The Hollow Man (2011)
  2. Deep Shelter (2013)
  3. The House of Fame (2015)
  4. A Season in Exile (2022)

Elliot Kane

  1. A Shadow Intelligence (2019)
  2. Ascension (2021)

Detailed book overview

D.C. Belsey

The Hollow Man

Describing London police detective Nick Belsey, hero of The Hollow Man, an enthrallingly original thriller from British crime novelist Oliver Harris—the Daily Mail declared, “He’s got to be London’s coolest cop.” Crime fiction fans are sure to agree, especially those hooked on the novels of Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson, Mark Billingham, and Jo Nesbø. 

The first book in a series of tense and twisting police procedurals, The Hollow Man starts with Belsey at rock bottom, and then embroils him in a brazen identity theft scam and possible murder that could leave him either wealthy or dead. It’s time to discover Oliver Harris, a new master of noir who’s destined to be a big man at the scene of the crime.

Author: Oliver Harris
First Release: 2011
ISBN: 978-0062136718
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Deep Shelter

Trouble once again finds Nick Belsey when he takes a date to an abandoned bomb shelter buried beneath the heart of London. One minute the young woman is there, and the next, she’s gone, mysteriously vanishing into the dark labyrinth of secret tunnels. A seasoned cop with a bad reputation, Nick knows that if he reports her disappearance, he’ll be the prime suspect. Instead, he’s going to find her. It’s not just her life at stake—it’s his, too.

Determined to discover who else is down in those forgotten tunnels, and how far this secret network of underground passages extends, he plunges head first into the investigation—and into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with a ruthless enemy who would rather let an innocent woman die than reveal old Cold War secrets hidden deep beneath the city’s streets.

Author: Oliver Harris
First Release: 2013
ISBN: 978-0062136725
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
The House of Fame

Twenty-seven, rich and beautiful, Amber Knight is living everyone’s dream. Her music career is established, her acting career is taking off, and she has a lifestyle fit for the top of the A-List.

So why has she started acting so strangely?

At least, that’s how it seems to Nick Belsey. A less celebrated resident of North London, Belsey’s decade-long career at Hampstead CID is coming to an abrupt end, but he still can’t seem to kick his habit of getting into serious trouble. When he’s asked by a desperate mother to help find her only son, Belsey has to infiltrate Amber’s glittering world. The seedy underside to her seemingly perfect life—a realm of excess, obsession, lust, and greed—doesn’t surprise him. What does is the blood trail that leads directly to Amber.

As one twisted crime is followed by another, Belsey finds himself chasing even more answers than when he started out. And when the stakes are raised dangerously high, Belsey’s own survival is at stake. It may be too late to save his reputation but he’s not ready to die just yet—and especially not at the hands of a celebrity.

Author: Oliver Harris
First Release: 2015
ISBN: 978-0062405159
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
A Season in Exile

Nick Belsey's on the run.

Touching down in Mexico City, he doesn't have much in the way of funds, but he has a new continent and surely that's enough to start afresh. But it's not as easy as that. An idyllic interlude in a coastal village is interrupted when men turn up who seem to know exactly who he is. And they have some very urgent questions.

DI Kirsty Craik had also hoped she'd left Nick Belsey behind her, in the wilder days of her career. When a five a.m. call instructs her to track him down or she'll be dead by Christmas, it seems he's walked back into her life with characteristic commotion. Craik is forced to break the rules once more to find out what her former lover is up to.

She needs to save herself, and, just maybe, to save Belsey, too.

Author: Oliver Harris
First Release: 2022
ISBN: 978-1408712917

Elliot Kane

A Shadow Intelligence

Elliot Kane reflects the dark side of MI6. He is the instrument of an agency that puts two years and more than £100K into training recruits to steal cars, hack bank accounts, strip weapons, and employ everything from blackmail to improvised explosives in service of Crown and Country. After fifteen years overseas embroiled in events that never make the news, Kane is a ghost in his own life, assuming and shedding personalities with each new cover story.

When the woman he loves, another operative named Joanna Lake, vanishes in Kazakhstan, she leaves behind an astonishing video of Kane in a room he’s never entered—sending Kane off the rails to find her. While he’s well versed in modern psychological warfare, snowbound, landlocked Kazakhstan presents unique challenges. In a country poised between China, Russia, and the West, between dictatorship and democracy, between state intelligence and increasingly powerful private corporations, it’s impossible to work out who is manipulating whom. 

Drawn ever deeper into a realm of deception and conflicting agendas, Kane moves from merely spying to steering the action. But Kane’s not the only one trying to figure out where Joanna Lake has gone, or what she learned before disappearing.

Author: Oliver Harris
First Release: 2019
ISBN: 978-0358561941
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Ascension

British spy Elliot Kane is forced out of semi-retirement to investigate a colleague’s suspicious death on Ascension Island, a remote and rocky outpost of the British military in the middle of the Atlantic.

Despite foiling a plot to incite a new world war, Elliot Kane has been on probation with MI6 since his rogue misadventures in Kazakhstan. Granted a job teaching literature to college students, he surprisingly enjoys a conventional life away from the intelligence services. 

Then a former colleague reaches out with a request: one of her tech specialists on a long-term, covert mission has killed himself, and the agency needs to find out why before proceeding with the vital operation. The carrot in this offer is helping his old friend; the stick is more disciplinary action if he doesn’t comply. So Kane takes on deep cover again and heads to one of the most remote places on the planet, Ascension Island.

A curious legacy of England’s imperial past, Ascension is a desolate rock made of dead volcanic cones located in the Atlantic Ocean halfway between Brazil and Angola. Only employees and their families are allowed to reside there, and the island contains both British and American military bases. 

After learning that a teenage girl disappeared on the same night as the technician’s suicide, Kane finds himself with two mysteries to solve. With local tensions running high, he needs to move quickly before suspicion falls on him. Kane soon realizes the island has more secrets than even the government knows, some leading straight to the highest offices in London.

Author: Oliver Harris
First Release: 2021
ISBN: 978-0358697442
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks