Kate Rhodes

Kate Rhodes grew up in London. After completing a PhD in English, she taught at schools and universities in the UK and USA. Kate writes contemporary crime novels, and now lives in Cambridge. She began her writing career with two award-winning collections of poetry. In 2014 she won the Ruth Rendell short story competition. The Financial Times commented on Kate’s abilities as a crime writer in September 2025. ‘No one produces more elegantly written work than Rhodes (who is also a poet), and any further recommendation for her work is redundant.’

Kate is the author of two successful crime series. The Isles of Scilly Mysteries features DI Ben Kitto and the opening title Hell Bay was shortlisted for the Crime Novel of the Year award. The protagonist of the earlier Alice Quentin series is a forensic psychologist, based in London, assisting the Met Police on the streets where Kate grew up. For more information visit www.katerhodesbooks.co.uk or follow Kate on Twitter: https://twitter.com/k_rhodeswriter

Latest book: DEADMAN'S POOL, is #8 in the Isles of Scilly Mysteries, published by Orenda in the UK and USA in September 2025.

Kate Rhodes It’s mid-winter and storms are battering Scilly when Ben sails over to St Helens with the islands’ only Catholic priest. Father Michael intends to live on the deserted island as a pilgrimage, despite harsh conditions.

St Helen’s atmosphere unnerves Ben from the start. The ghosts of sailors from the old isolation hospital still seem to linger in the fog. Those that died there were given sea burials on the dark stretch of water now known as Deadman’s Pool. When Ben’s wolfdog Shadow begins to dig frantically in the sand he unearths the emaciated body of a teenage girl, wrapped in a Vietnamese prayer shawl. But who would sail to such a remote place to bury a girl’s body, then light up a barbecue and drink a few beers?

When a three-week-old baby is found abandoned on the steps of the police station, it emerges that both the infant and the dead girl are Vietnamese. Ben is forced to look beyond the island’s shores for a vicious killer, who’s determined to take more lives.

Praise for THE ISLES OF SCILLY MYSTERIES:

‘Beautifully written and expertly plotted, this is a masterclass in ‘closed world’ crime fiction.’ The Guardian

‘Rhodes does a superb job of balancing a portrayal of a tiny community oppressed by secrets with an uplifting evocation of her Scillonian setting.’ —Sunday Express

HANGMAN ISLAND Simon and Schuster, 2023 (hardback), May 2023 (mass-market paperback), S.Fischer Verlage Germany, January 2024

DI Ben Kitto is taking part in the islands’ summer fair to raise money for the lifeboat service, when he hears that a fellow member of the lifeboat crew is missing. When Jez Cardew’s boat is found empty it’s assumed that he drowned in a tragic accident. He had recently been awarded a medal for valour at sea and was seen as a hero. But soon another member of the lifeboat crew dies and it’s clear that she was dragged behind a boat, until she drowned. Someone is targeting the islands’ bravest inhabitants. Kitto must find out why, before another hero dies.

THE BRUTAL TIDE, Simon and Schuster, October 2022 (hardback), May 2023 (mass-market paperback), S.Fischer Verlage Germany, January 2024

DI Ben Kitto has just become a father, but his past is catching up with him. He worked as an undercover murder investigator in London, exposing gangland’s worst criminals. Now one of the men he got sent down is dying in jail, but his daughter is determined to get even with the whole police team that deprived her father of his last years of freedom. She’s travelling down to Scilly, causing havoc everywhere she stays, but Ben has a new case to solve. A young man’s body has been found on Badplace Hill, and he must unravel one of the islands’ darkest secrets to find his killer.

DEVIL’S TABLE, published October 2022

On the island of St Martin’s the winter flower picking campaign is underway at Minear Farm. But when a young girl goes missing, only Ethan Minear, her mute ten year-old brother saw her vanish. A model ship in a bottle is found at the scene, and when more tiny model ships are found across the island, DI Ben Kitto must find an islander who’s kept their talent for model-making hidden until now. Soon the boy’s father is killed, his body laid on Devil’s Table, a site of ancient sacrifice. But who hates the island’s richest landowning family enough to want them dead?

PULPIT ROCK, Simon and Schuster, October 2020 (hardback), May 2021 (mass-market paperback), S.Fischer Verlage Germany, January 2021

When DI Ben Kitto discovers a woman’s body, at St Mary’s most iconic beauty spot, his only choice is to place the island on lockdown, during the hottest summer ever recorded. Why has a young Latvian woman been dressed in a bridal gown, then left hanging at Pulpit Rock? When more women’s bodies are found dressed as brides, Kitto must confront the island’s culture of secrecy. The killer appears to hate young independent women who choose to work in Scilly, then leave, never intending to settle there. Someone is snuffing out their lives, before they can flee the island. Kitto is forced to interrogate islanders he’s respected all his life to expose the killer’s secret.

‘Beautifully written and expertly plotted, this is a masterclass in ‘closed world’ crime fiction.’ The Guardian

‘Rhodes does a superb job of balancing a portrayal of a tiny community oppressed by secrets with an uplifting evocation of her Scillonian setting.’ —Sunday Express

BURNT ISLAND, published October 2019

When DI Ben Kitto finds the body of a famous astronomer on a bonfire on the tiny island of St Agnes, on Guy Fawkes night, the killer must be among its eighty inhabitants. No boats have left the island since, so the killer must be hiding in plain sight. Has the victim been targeted for organising the island’s Dark Skies Festival, which will bring hundreds of visitors to St Agnes? Or maybe someone resents his attempts to turn the island’s disused lifeboat house into an observatory? Kitto must question the island’s elders, who guard their secrets closely, putting his own life at risk.

RUIN BEACH, published October 2018

When the body of professional diver Jude Trellon is found in Piper’s Hole on the island of Tresco, it looks like a tragic accident. But DI Ben Kitto soon discovers that she was choked to death with a statuette, stolen from a local shipwreck. Soon it emerges that divers have been stealing valuable treasures from an ancient shipwreck that lies so deep on the ocean floor that only experienced divers, or risk takers, dare to visit it. Kitto must risk his own life to the mercy of the sea to stop the spate of killings.

HELL BAY, Simon and Schuster, January 2018 (hardback), May 2018 (mass-market paperback), S.Fischer Verlage Germany, January 2020

DI Ben Kitto needs a second chance. After ten years in the Met’s murder investigation team, his work partner’s suicide has left him grief-stricken, and in charge of her wayward dog, Shadow. Kitto returns to the tiny Scilly island of Bryher where he was born to recover, but his plans go awry when the body of sixteen year old Laura Trescothick is found at Hell Bay. Kitto volunteers to run the investigation but soon the maimed body of Laura’s boyfriend washes up on the ghostly uninhabited island of Samson, and he must close the case before another teenager is killed. His own life is in danger when he discovers that the killer is an islander that no one would ever have suspected.

‘Beautifully written and expertly plotted, this is a masterclass in ‘closed world’ crime fiction.’ The Guardian

‘Rhodes does a superb job of balancing a portrayal of a tiny community oppressed by secrets with an uplifting evocation of her Scillonian setting.’ —Sunday Express

THE STALKER, published October 2024, Simon and Schuster UK

The Stalker is tense contemporary standalone crime novel. Dr Eloise Shaw is a world- renowned psychologist in the field of stalking. She’s 40 years old, working at Cambridge University. Ironically, her work has left her vulnerable to the very syndrome she is trying to cure. When she’s attacked in a crowd on Bonfire Night, she wakes up in hospital, terrified. Eloise can no longer ignore the messages she has been receiving, saying just ‘ME OR YOU.’ When she discovers that her husband Rafe is having an affair, she flees to the old cottage on the Fens where she grew up. Stress leaves her grappling with long-buried childhood memories.

Eloise fears that Rafe could be her stalker, jealous of her closeness to their teenage son, Jamie. But it could be anyone in her close circle, seeking revenge for the ugly events of her childhood. The stalker appears determined to watch her die. Eloise’s drama plays out on the ancient streets of Cambridge. She will have to confront her past, and test her expertise to the limit, to survive.

THE ALICE QUENTIN SERIES

Praise for the Alice Quentin series

‘Tense and believable with dizzying twists and turns.’ The Sun

‘Rhodes portrays London’s dark streets in the depths of winter with consummate skill.’ The Telegraph

‘A brilliant central character, with a gritty believable storyline.’ Metro

The series was published by Mulholland, Hachette in the UK. The first three novels were published in the US by Minotaur, River of Souls and Blood Symmetry by Harper Collins Witness Impulse. Foreign editions also in German, Russian, Portuguese and Czech.

BLOOD SYMMETRY, Mulholland 2016.

Clare Riordan and her son Mikey are abducted from Clapham Common early one morning. Hours later, the boy is found wandering disorientated. Soon after, a pack of Clare's blood is left on a doorstep in the heart of the City of London. Alice Quentin is brought in to help the traumatised child uncover his memories - which might lead them to his mother's captors. But she swiftly realises Clare is not the first victim... nor will she be the last. The killers are driven by a desire for revenge... and in the end, it will all come down to blood

RIVER OF SOULS Mulholland 2015.

Three years ago the daughter of cabinet minister Timothy Shelley was brutally attacked and thrown into the River Thames. Jude Shelley is still in hospital, awaiting a face transplant, but no suspect has ever been found. Soon a new spate of identical attacks takes place, the killer revealing his obsession with the Thames by leaving objects from the shore at each crime scene. Dr Alice Quentin consults the history academics at London University and discovers that the killer is leaving victims’ bodies at sites of ancient human sacrifice: Execution Dock, London Bridge, and Vauxhall Cross. When DCI Don Burns is taken, the stakes are high for Alice who is falling in love with him.

The killer has suffered a psychotic breakdown after working as Shelley’s assistant for years. Since his mother committed suicide, he can hear the river talking to him, calling for more souls. His hero worship of Timothy Shelley turned to an obsessive desire to protect him after discovering that his boss had been having an affair. When Alice finally tracks Burns down he is close to drowning in the Thames. She will need all of her bravery to rescue him from the murderer’s clutches and the rising tide.

THE WINTER FOUNDLINGS Mulholland 2014.

In the depths of a harsh winter psychologist Alice Quentin begins a placement at Northwood, a high security psychiatric prison for the UK’s most dangerous prisoners. She plans to carry out research, but her work is disturbed when the bodies of young girls are found in historic locations in London. The first child’s body is left outside the Foundling Hospital in a cardboard coffin, dressed as a Victorian orphan. The killing bears a chilling resemblance to the murders carried out by Northwood’s most terrifying serial killer. Louis Kinsella was a primary school headmaster when he abducted and killed eleven young girls, and was obsessed by the Foundling Hospital’s regime.

When another young girl’s body is discovered Alice is drawn into DCI Don Burns’s investigation. The killer knows details from Kinsella’s killing spree which only he could have shared. Alice must form a close relationshipwith the murderer, to make him share his secrets, but their meetings become a game of cat and mouse. The only way for Alice to gain access to his mind is to reveal secrets of her own, and she knows how much danger she’s in. Kinsella is a brilliant psychopath who goaded his last therapist to breaking point through constant psychological bullying.Soon Alice must race against time to save the life of ten year old Ella Williams who is being held captive by a vicious killer. To gain Kinsella’s secrets, she must bargain with her life

A KILLING OF ANGELS Mulholland 2013.

It’s the hottest summer on record and a banker is pushed to his death under a Tube train in central London. Psychologist Alice Quentin works with DI Don Burns to track down the ruthless serial killer. But as more bank workers die in a series of vicious attacks, it’s clear that he will stop at nothing to show the world his contempt for the finance industry. The killer leaves pictures of Renaissance angels and a handful of white feathers at the scene of each crime, and Alice must understand the meaning of these symbolic calling cards before the case can be solved. She starts a new relationship with ex-financier Andrew Piernan, but soon realises that he could be involved in the crimes. Alice is exposed to the greed and violence which lie at the toxic heart of the city, and has to use all of her psychological insight, just to survive.

CROSSBONES YARD, Mulholland 2012.

Alice Quentin has a high-powered job, and she lives in a glamorous London neighbourhood, but her life is unravelling. Her drug-addicted brother Will lives in a van, parked outside her apartment building, and memories of her father’s violence still haunt her. Thirty-two year old Alice works as a psychologist at Guy’s Hospital, and she believes that hard work will keep her fears under control, but she is terrified of confined spaces. One night while out running she finds a girl’s body at Crossbones Yard, a prostitutes’ graveyard in Southwark. The police ask her to build a profile of the killer, and she discovers that the murder is like those carried out by serial killers Ray and Marie Benson seven years before. The Bensons tortured their victims before burying their bodies in the grounds of their property. Alice is forced to visit Marie Benson, Britain’s most notorious female killer, in Rampton Psychiatric Hospital. When Alice starts to receive threatening letters, and a second woman is killed outside her apartment building, it’s clear that her life is in danger. Her brother Will’s drug use is spiralling out of control. When Alice finds a knife in his pocket, she fears that he is involved in the murders.

Alice begins a tense relationship with one of the investigating officers, DS Ben Alvarez. When her best friend, the actress Lola Tremaine goes missing, Alice escapes from her police bodyguards to hunt for the killer, only to find herself captured and locked inside a wooden box. At the end of this gripping urban thriller Alice learns how to fight back, to overcome the memories that have kept her life in check.