K.H. Irvine Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

K.H. Irvine is a thriller author best known for her debut piece of fiction “A killing Sin.” Irvine was born in Scotland though she now resides in a London suburb from where she now writes. Her debut novel was a gift for herself when she turned fifty and decided to write a story about controversial themes to do with terrorism. As a psychologist, she has worked with organizations and government offices across the world as she helps them understand how people behave under pressure and what makes them tick. Irvine spent three years researching radicalization and terrorism before she published “A Killing Sin” in 2019. She had also applied to be a mentor for Desistance and Disengagement Programme counter-terrorism strategy. But once her novel came out, the government rejected her application to become a mentor for prisoners on probation for terrorism-related offenses. According to the recruiters, the fact that she had a book on the subject made it inappropriate for her to work in the mentorship program. She thus decided to become a full-time author and intends to release her second novel soon.

K.H. Irvine worked as a psychologist and for many years, her work took her across the world as she contracted with businesses, universities, and governments. While she had never directly worked with terrorists, she was fascinated by the vulnerabilities that led people to become radicalized. She did a lot of work for Jordan and Lebanon with the British Council and also collaborated with the Cabinet Office and the Foreign Office. While she never worked directly with radicalized people she researched and wrote about the subject for a quarter of the century and in this process, she met a lot of people including undercover agents. She has also worked with a London School of Economics professor that was studying the effect of the terror group Taliban on Afghani women. Over the years, she accumulated a lot of information and for more than a decade, she thought about writing a novel documenting her experiences.

With a full-time job and family, K.H. Irvine thought it was not for people like her to write novels. However, once she turned fifty, she had a now or never moment and decided to take a week out of every six to make her dream of writing a novel come true. She had a very good friend that had worked with Bloomsbury s an editor who provided invaluable advice. The friend told her that she had to just write just like someone who is dancing for themselves without caring who was going to watch. She thus wrote her novel like no one was going to read it. She made her story into a woman’s story with flawed and complex characters that made mistakes. Irvine had to rewrite several of her storylines that her editors thought were too similar to the terrorist acts that came soon after she had written her story. Her major theme was how being vulnerable exposes one to potential exploitation. In her second novel, she writes about the far-right that she thinks is even more extreme.

“A Killing Sin” by K.H. Irvine is a novel set in 2023 in post-Brexit Britain. It is a time when every move of British citizens is monitored by the authorities and racial tension is high in several London suburbs where Sharia is the law. Hackeem Amala is a former Muslim, controversial comedian and tech genius that finds herself having to wear a burqa. She has to meet a group of women living in the Sharia controlled part of London as a favor to Aafa her younger brother. But she had a bad feeling about the visit right from the time she decided to go. On the other side of town is university professor Millie Stephenson who is an expert on radicalization. She is walking to Downing Street where she is going to brief the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister. But she is just about to be at the center of a terrorist attack that will have a lot of import in her life. Ella Russell is an investigative journalist that is about to experience the real cost of fighting terror while investigating a story about corruption in the top levels of the British government. The three have been friends for years having met as students in Edinburgh. It is a dystopian story set in the future that looks very likely to be the future of Britain. Exploring controversial issues such as political corruption, terrorism, human rights, radicalization, capitalism, security, isolated communities, religious communities, civil liberties, and persecution among many other headline issues of the modern-day.