THE CHEMICAL DETECTIVE

THE CHEMICAL DETECTIVE is the debut internationall thriller by Fiona Erskine, which would sit alongside novels such as THE NIGHT MANAGER, with the key difference that our hero is a woman.

Dr Jacqueline Silver is an engineer and explosives expert, researching avalanche control in Slovenia, and trying to cope with a messy divorce. When she discovers that Zagrovyl, a multinational chemical company and her ex-employer, is shipping illegal chemicals through Eastern Europe, and that her predecessor disappeared in mysterious circumstances, she becomes determined to investigate. But after being blamed for a suspicious explosion at work, she is suspended for professional incompetence – and framed for murder. Managing to escape custody she sets out to clear her name, but forced into the seedy underbelly of the chemical weapons industry, she soon discovers that the only person she can trust is herself. From the snowy slopes of Slovenia, to the wreckage of Chernobyl, she must fight for her innocence, and to stop Zagrovyl, before it’s too late.

THE CHEMICAL DETECTIVE would sit happily alongside novels like I AM PILGRIM, or ORPHAN X, but with a fresh twist given the chemical engineering setting, and the unique set of challenges Jacqueline’s gender cause her.

After graduating from Selwyn College, Cambridge University with a masters degree in Chemical Engineering, Fiona returned home to Edinburgh and her first job with ICI.She continues to work as a professional engineer—now based in Teesside, England—but travelling constantly to Brazil, Russia, India and China. As a female engineer, she is often the lone representative of her sex in board meetings, cargo ships, night-time factories and offshore oil rigs. She is interested in the conflicts between pure science and applied technology, between progress and power, between individual risk and societal benefit. THE CHEMICAL DETECTIVE is her first novel.