Deborah Masson

Deborah Masson writes Scottish police procedurals shaped by her knowledge of Aberdeen, the city where she grew up. From the Ashes is the third DI Eve Hunter novel, published by Transworld and Penguin in 2022. It begins after a fire at a privately run children’s home, drawing Eve and her team into questions about the institution, its residents, and the interests surrounding it. The book followed Hold Your Tongue and Out for Blood, continuing the working relationships and personal strains within the Aberdeen investigation unit. From the Ashes was longlisted for the 2022 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish fiction in its field. Masson developed her debut while studying through the Professional Writing Academy and Faber Academy, after earlier work in marketing, reporting, and other jobs. Her series joins a strong regional setting to ensemble police work, allowing institutional failures and private loyalties to emerge through competing accounts rather than a single investigator’s intuition.