Holly Watt Books In Order

Publication Order of Casey Benedict Books

Holly Watt is a British is an international thriller author and Journalist. Watt got her start at the “Sunday Times” before she moved to the “Daily Telegraph,” where she worked for six years working as the leader of the investigations team and Whitehall Editor. She then moved to the “Guardian,” where she also worked on the investigations team. During this time, she has received nominations for several prizes in journalism and won several awards the most prominent of which were for her work on the “Panama Papers” and “MPs’ Expenses” at the Telegraph. In 2008, she worked at the “Post,” having won the Laurence Stern Fellowship. She got nominations for the Scoop of the Year five times while working for the expenses team at the Telegraph. Watt made the shortlist for Political Journalist of the Year and News Reporter of the Year in 2011 and Young Journalist of the Year in 2010. During her time working with a variety of publications, she has been to several countries including Lebanon, Afghanistan, Jordan, Bangladesh and Libya.

While most of his work is deemed adventure thriller, she never deemed herself an adventure author. In a recent interview, she asserted that while she was writing “To The Lions” her agent told her that her work did not fit snugly in any category. However, the novel surprised everyone when it was published by Raven, made the shortlist for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger by the Crime Writers’ Association in 2019. Holy Watt believes that adventure writing is all about a wider lens approach to a story. Her stories ate thus bold, big stories set in locations that most sensible people would never dream of visiting. In hindsight, she says that her work as a journalist involved helping people understand different ways of life and new places. As such, “To The Lions” was written to continue with that aspect of discovery and exploration.

As a child, Watt loved reading adventure novels and remembers Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” as having had a huge influence. She also loved “Gulliver’s Travels” and the “Hornblower” novels. She would also spend a lot of time building dens in the garden and reenacting dramas with her sister and her cousins. Holly Watt’s adventures across the world have also been a significant influence. For several years she was a journalist that lived in the excitement of waking up and not knowing where her editor would send her that day. She would be asked to go to Heathrow and only get the details of the assignment when she was halfway there. Given her job, there was a lot of adventure in her life. Whether it be chasing Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean or trying to find documents hidden in a nuclear silo in Libya, there were many times that she would think that she came too close to danger and disaster. However, the moment that most stands out was when she drove off a road high up in the Rockies and found herself stranded in a snowdrift while a blizzard raged around her. Watt spent enough time there that she even thought she would probably never get out. While she never realized it at the time, it was that sense of not knowing what was coming that resulted in the making of the settings and the characters that she would later write about in “To The Lions.” She spent years never knowing if she would be in Wrexham, The Bahamas or Kabul just like Casey Benedict the lead character of her novel.

The award-winning “To The Lions” is the story of a star reporter at the Post named Casey Benedict. She begins investigations when she overhears a conversation between two people at a night club. The two were talking about a suspected suicide of a British youth that had devastated his family and fiancée. Her quest for the truth takes her from the streets of London to the deserts of Libya to the glitzy life of St. Tropez and even to the darkest corners of some of the most wicked of men. The novel comes with a compelling plot, suspenseful writing, and a sharp fantastic female lead. Thanks to Watt’s experiences as a journalist, it provides a very authentic depiction of life for an international investigative journalist including the highlights and horrors that come with the job.

“To The Lions” is an international thriller that introduces Casey Benedict, who has just stumbled upon a dark conspiracy. The veteran reporter at the Post is determined to hunt down all the clues in the case and resolve it no matter the odds. It is a tough case to crack but she has exposed the lies and infiltrated the lives of countless power players and politicians and this should be no different. Calling upon her network of contacts and her master capacity for disguise, she had distinguished herself as the most effective investigator and reporter. Casey could always be depended upon to unearth the next big story despite the emotional cost to her or the danger she could get herself in. The suspicious death of the wealthy British man is just but the tip of the iceberg of a massive conspiracy. The sinister plot involved a cabal of the world’s most powerful magnates and leaders who are involved in a dangerous and sinister scandal. They are gathering for a secret and extreme hunt in North Africa and Casey needs to work to get the truth from that meeting no matter what it takes.

“The Dead Line” is the second novel of the “Casey Benedict” series by Holly Watt. Casey knows all about working on stories with a huge human cost that has taken her from the top to the bottom of her society. Things are no different when she gets a tip about the kidnapping of two girls from a frantic message hidden in some clothes meant for London’s elite. Casey immediately knows that this could be a huge story but identifying and exposing the manufacturers of the clothes is not going to be an easy task. Her attempts to track down the girls will take her across the world to a Bangladeshi camp and to various newsrooms in London. It will involve a Harley Street doctor, a British Ambassador and a family devastated by the tragedy.