Tim Weaver (author)

Tim Weaver (born 1977) is an English writer primarily known for his crime thrillers featuring missing persons investigator David Raker.

Career

Journalism

Prior to publication of his first book, Weaver was a videogames journalist. He was editor of cult gaming title, N64 Magazine and spent six years as Editor of Xbox World, leaving the magazine in 2011.^[1] More recently, he has appeared as co-host of YouTube show GTA V O'Clock.^[2] In his wider career as a journalist, he has written about the long struggle he and his wife had to start a family.^[3]

Novels

Weaver's debut crime thriller Chasing the Dead – which took ten years to get published^[4] – was released in February 2010 and introduced the character of David Raker. Raker is a former journalist, who gave up his career in newspapers to care for his wife after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The book begins twelve months after her death, and centres on the mysterious reappearance of a man thought to have died in a car crash.^[5] The Guardian called it "an impressive debut", though questioned the characterisation of Raker.^[6] On a BBC Radio Somerset interview, when asked about Raker's background, Weaver described how he drew on his own traumatic battle to have a child.^[7]

His follow-up The Dead Tracks – which went to number one on the Amazon Kindle charts in March 2013^[8] – was reviewed favourably by thriller author Luca Veste.^[9] It concerned the hunt for a serial killer.^[10]

The third novel in the series, Vanished, saw Raker looking into the case of a man disappearing on a London Underground train. The Guardian claimed Weaver's books were getting "better each time – tense, complex, sometimes horrific, written with flair as well as care.".^[11]

His fourth book, Never Coming Back, is the first in the series to move entirely away from London, and is set in Devon and Las Vegas. On 28 August 2013 it was announced that Never Coming Back had been selected for the Richard and Judy Autumn 2013 Book Club.^[12] On 18 November 2013, it was shortlisted for Crime & Thriller of the Year in the Specsavers National Book Awards,^[13] and on 16 December 2013 iTunes included it in their 'Best of 2013' list, naming it Best British Crime Thriller.^[14]

On his decision to have David Raker specialise in missing persons cases, Weaver has said: "I just became very interested in the idea of a person going missing in an age where we have CCTV on every street, 24-hour rolling news channels, and constant access to cameras through our phones. It seemed like an intriguing starting point for a book. It sounds trite, but I was also struck by the human cost. Can you imagine how many stories must go untold when a person vanishes?"^[15]

In October 2013, Weaver contributed a short story entitled Disconnection to #YouDunnit, a joint venture between Penguin and Specsavers.^[16] The major themes of the story – including the victim, crime scene location, and central character – were crowdsourced on Twitter.

Weaver's fifth novel, Fall from Grace, came out in August 2014^[17] and concerned the search for a missing former Metropolitan Police officer.^[18]

Personal life

Weaver attended Norton Hill School^[19] in Midsomer Norton, Somerset. Although he lives in Bath with his family, he maintains strong links to South Africa through his wife: "(She) was born and bred in Pietermaritzburg, so we always try to make an annual trip out if we can as her parents and brother are still in the area. After 13 years of coming over, it very much feels like a second home, albeit a second home with a better climate."^[20] He also describes himself as a "massive, massive football fan",^[21] and supports Arsenal and Bath City F.C.

Bibliography

David Raker novels

• 2010 – Chasing the Dead
• 2011 – The Dead Tracks
• 2012 – Vanished
• 2013 – Never Coming Back
• 2014 – Fall From Grace
• 2015 – What Remains
• 2016 - Broken Heart

Short stories

• 2013 – Disconnection

References

External links

• Official website