Fearless

*This book is currently under option*

FEARLESS is a fast-paced thriller featuring lone-wolf protagonist Ben Koenig, who, six years after disappearing off the face of the earth, is hunted down and recruited for a dangerous mission – he’s the only man for the job, as he is incapable of experiencing fear…. There is also a fascinating central female character, US Marshal Jen Draper – smart, ruthless, with a passionate dislike for Ben – but is she working with him or against him?

The new series was signed by Constable in a six-figure deal in the UK and by Flatiron in the US, along with the continuation of the Sunday Times bestselling and Dagger winning Washington Poe series, which was previously in development for TV and has been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades (listed below). You can read the Bookseller announcement here.

Six years back Ben Koenig headed up the US Marshal’s Special Operations Group. They were the unit who hunted the bad guys. The really bad guys. They did this so no one else had to.

And then one day Ben sold his house, liquidated his assets and disappeared off the face of the earth. He told no one why and left no forwarding address. For six years he became a grey man. Someone you didn’t remember. He drifted from town to town, from state to state, never visiting the same place twice. He was untraceable – officially, he no longer existed.

But now his face is plastered across every television screen in the country. Someone from Ben’s past is going to extraordinary lengths to find him and they don’t care how they do it. They have a job for him, a revenge mission, one Ben won’t be able to refuse. Because in the hellish heat of the Chihuahuan desert lies a town called Gauntlet. Some people in Gauntlet have a secret and they’ll do anything protect it. And they know Ben is coming. They’ve killed before and they’ll kill again.

It’s easy to dismiss Ben Koenig as just another drifter, someone you don’t need to concern yourself about. But that would be a mistake. Because Ben has a condition, a unique disorder that means he is incapable of experiencing fear. And that makes Ben Koenig a different kind of animal . . .

Multi-award-winning author M. W. Craven was born in Carlisle but grew up in Newcastle. He joined the army at sixteen, leaving ten years later to complete a social work degree. Seventeen years after taking up a probation officer role in Cumbria, at the rank of assistant chief officer, he became a full-time author. THE PUPPET SHOW, the first book in his Cumbria-set Washington Poe series, was published by Little, Brown in 2018 and went on to win the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger in 2019. It has now been translated into twenty-five languages. BLACK SUMMER, the second in the series, was longlisted for the 2020 Gold Dagger as was book three, THE CURATOR in 2021. The fourth in the series, DEAD GROUND, was published in 2021, became an instant Sunday Times bestseller and has been longlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Theakston Old Peculiar Novel of the Year 2022.

Craven is represented by David H Headley at D H H Literary Agency, and FEARLESS will be published by Constable in the UK and Flatiron in the US in Summer 2023.