About Holly
Holly’s first novel, To The Lions, won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. Her second novel, The Dead Line, is the next in the Casey Benedict series. Before she started writing full-time, Holly was a journalist. She began her career at the Sunday Times, before working on the investigation teams at the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian.
Holly has been nominated for a wide range of journalism prizes, winning awards for her work on stories including MPs’ Expenses at the Telegraph and the Panama Papers at the Guardian. She has reported from a wide range of countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Libya, Jordan and Lebanon. As well as flying around the world on everything from Lynx helicopters to Air Force One, Holly also worked as an undercover journalist.
Reviews for The Dead Line
‘A compelling thriller that also raises real-world questions about the cost of human lives and what it means to be responsible for one another’, Stylist
‘No second album syndrome for Watt; her follow-up to her debut, To the Lions (winner of 2019’s top thriller award, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger), is just as vivid and packed with journalistic lore, and just as adroit in mixing pulsating derring-do with painstaking detective work’, Sunday Times
‘Thriller of the Month. Terrific, hair-raising and profoundly disturbing’, Saga
‘Casey is fierce, obsessive and brilliant. Watt, herself an investigative journalist, provides a daunting insight into what the job entails as Casey blackmails and tricks her way to the truth’, Alison Flood, Observer, Thrillers of the Month
‘Holly Watt’s first novel, To the Lions, won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and this, her second, is even better. This novel has something for everyone’, Literary Review
‘Utterly convincing… Watt is also an expert at ratcheting up the suspense … A superbly crafted sequel in what one hopes will be a long running series’, The Times
Buy Holly’s books from your local Bookseller:
