Hayter - Joe Zalias

Malik Hayter has a psychopathy diagnosis, a probation tag on his ankle and a tweed suit he's using as armour. Recently released from Doncaster prison after six and a half years, he sets up a front business as a private investigator whilst attempting to resume his life as one of Sheffield's most feared criminal enforcers. The plan is straightforward. The reality is anything but. When a desperate mother walks into his office and his six-year-old daughter makes him promise to find her missing child, Malik finds himself going against everything he has ever known. What follows will pull him deeper into Sheffield's criminal underworld than even he has been before, and force him to confront the question of whether a man like Malik Hayter can ever truly change. Set against the gritty, divided landscape of Sheffield, Hayter is a dark, visceral and uncompromising debut that pulls no punches. Brutal and blackly funny in equal measure, it is a story about damage and loyalty, about the families we are born into and the ones we choose, and about how far one man will go when a child's life is on the line. For lovers of dark crime fiction. Contains strong language, graphic violence and mature themes throughout.