Archives of Ash

The first Rhys Maren novel

A seventeen-year-old boy is accused of murder after a recorded confession appears to prove his guilt. The voice is his. The confession is not.

Tracing the recording leads Rhys Maren into the world of synthetic voices, forgotten archives and a wartime research programme that officially ended more than eighty years ago. As the evidence unfolds, the investigation becomes deeply personal. Hidden among the missing records is the story of Margaret, Rhys's grandmother, whose service during the Second World War left questions she never answered.

What follows is not simply an investigation into a single piece of technology, but an exploration of memory, history and the unexpected ways the past continues to shape the present. As forgotten lives emerge from the archive, Rhys discovers that evidence survives in places no one thought to look and that some truths can be documented without ever being resolved.

Archives of Ash introduces Rhys Maren and the world he inhabits, where technology is never just about machines, but about the people whose lives become part of them.

What you'll find in this novel

• A contemporary mystery rooted in real technology.
• Hidden wartime history with consequences in the present day.
• Artificial intelligence, voice cloning and digital evidence.
• Family secrets spanning generations.
• An investigator who follows evidence wherever it leads.

Read an extract

Read the opening chapter of Archives of Ash and meet Rhys Maren.

Read Archives of Ash Chapter 1

Release Info

Archives of Ash is available in paperback and ebook.

Buy Archives of Ash

Characters

• Margaret Maren
• Eleanor Maren
• Dr Lillian Southworth
• Albert
• Tomasz Kovács
• Hilde Schmidt
• Anna Schmidt

Locations

• Station Trefor
• Ashcombe Hall
• The People's War Memorial