JO CALMAN
Author, novelist. Writer of the Crossed Lines thriller series and Viktor - a haunted spy, a cold war novel based on a true story. All this coming soon, and more....
Crossed Lines
Part Three: Puppet Show
On sale from 28 August
Crossed Lines: A high-speed, complex, geographically wide-ranging, quite technical, sometimes brutal, sometimes sexy, sometimes funny, often violent, corruption driven, crime soaked, duplicitous, deceptive, confusing, thrilling, passionately human and rather strange love story.
The journey continues.
In Part Three: Puppet Show, an apparent suicide is brought to Commander Julia Kelso’s attention. On the face of it, a woman has jumped off a bridge in north London, but there is more to it. She had been repeatedly abused by ruthlessly brutal criminals who traffic young, vulnerable women across Europe to feed the sex trade.
Mel Dunn’s analysis points towards a small group of well-placed people pulling strings to facilitate the trade (and make a lot of money from it) led by a single person - a puppet master. Digging further, Mel concludes that her closest friend and confidante, Julia Kelso, is close to the manipulators and she is worried by it. She calls Ferdinand, who comes back to help her….
Is Kelso what she seems to be, or does she have dark secrets?
Is their trust shaken, even broken. Can it be rebuilt?
A breakneck race against time, concealed forces and murderous enemies is on, and it must be won!
Crossed Lines
Part Two: Collateral Damage
On sale from 31 July
Crossed Lines: A high-speed, complex, geographically wide-ranging, quite technical, sometimes brutal, sometimes sexy, sometimes funny, often violent, corruption driven, crime soaked, duplicitous, deceptive, confusing, thrilling, passionately human and rather strange love story.
The journey continues.
In Part Two: Collateral Damage, Julia Kelso is perplexed by a rash of inexplicable and illogical drug overdoses. Unsure of the reasons behind it, she gets Mel Dunn to dig and delve. It soon looks like there are dark forces involved. It’s time for Alan Ferinand to get back on the field, put on a new persona and get on with the unorthodox business of infiltrating a conspiracy. What they find is a corrupt plot by ruthless people to disrupt the cocaine market for massive personal gain, regardless of the number of people killed or permanently injured. They are just collateral damage.
Meanwhile, the dynamic between Kelso, Dunn and Ferdinand - on and off the pitch - is getting quite interesting…
Crossed Lines
Part One: No Choice
Crossed Lines Part One: No Choice is on sale from 30 June.
So what is Crossed Lines?
In a sentence, it is a high-speed, complex, geographically wide-ranging, quite technical, sometimes brutal, sometimes sexy, sometimes funny, often violent, corruption driven, crime soaked, duplicitous, deceptive, confusing, thrilling, passionately human and rather strange love story.
In Part One: No Choice, we meet the players. First, Julia Kelso, by day a respected and respectable senior police officer, by night a solo dancing queen who is also a savage streetfighter with a rebellious streak. Second, a tired detective who is being sidelined; Alan Ferdinand has reached the pinnacle of his career, he is worn out and worn down, unhappy and practically broke. He is watching a drama unfold and can see that it will be horrific. If it continues the way it has started, when the curtain falls he will have been outed as the villain of the piece, and he knows he isn’t. Finally Mel Dunn, an intelligence analyst who lives and breathes organised facts and data behind a computer screen. Sharp, intuitive and seemingly reserved, behind the façade she is organised but also rebellious, and with an adventurous sexual secret.
Three people, three journeys, all thrown together and now moving in the same direction to take on the most serious corruption, which the system cannot beat on its own.
The story begins!
It came out on Monday 23 February 2026 and is selling well! It is available to order online and from your preferred bookseller. I know that some of you will be surprised at the paperback cover price, which has had to be set to reflect quite steeply increased printing and distribution costs. If you are concerned, I do have some copies available for direct supply, unfortunately limited to the UK for now. If you want your own personalised copy delivered to your door just let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
The ebook is available on Kindle and more widely on Kobo, Apple Books and other platforms.
I do hope you enjoy it. If you do, please leave reviews and ratings. It all helps.
I do have some copies available for direct sales. If you buy from me the price is the same, but you will get a personal dedication and free UK postage. Just contacvt me through this site or on Instagram or Facebook. If you are outside the UK and you want a personalised paperback copy just get in touch for a price.
Based on true characters and events, the story of how nuclear Armageddon was narrowly avoided in the 1980s. Told as fiction the story of how one loyal Russian patriot ended up averting the very war he had been planning for.
In the early 1980s the world was on the brink of a nuclear Armageddon. Trust between the USA and the Soviet Union was at an all-time low, suspicion and fear ruled as each side believed that the other was planning an imminent attack. Against this background Viktor Gumnov, a KGB officer, is sent with his family on a secret mission to Washington charged with the task of finding a way in which the Soviet Union could win such a war.
While there Viktor comes to the conclusion that if the American people could be provoked into mass panic, it would be possible to initiate a series of manufactured natural disaster to take out most key parts of the eastern United States.
Despite planning America’s defeat, his fear that a forthcoming NATO exercise would be seen by Moscow as cover for a genuine attack prompts Viktor to try to get a vital message to the Soviet leadership. He emphasises that his well-placed contacts insist that the NATO exercise is just that, not cover for the real thing. Moscow is sceptical but the world survives.
Based on a true story, this is a tale of high-stakes espionage as it really happened, and of how a potential global catastrophe was averted. It is a human story of courage and ingenuity, and a quest for understanding.
