Chris Chibnall’s “Death at the White Hart” Delivers a Killer Debut

Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall

“Death at the White Hart is an extraordinary debut novel, filled with atmosphere and layered mystery and characters that live and breathe and leap off the page.”

“His eyes drifted back to the road, a shocking state of panic –
— something in the middle of the road —
— you’re going to hit it!…
Slam. Jolt. Stop.
Breathe.
The bodywork ticked and creaked in protest at the emergency halt. The engine had stalled at his carelessness.
Ewan checked himself. Spike of adrenaline subsiding.
First thought: maybe it’s a deer.
Second thought, as he peered through the windscreen: that’s not a deer.”

At 3 a.m., Detective Sergeant Nicola Bridge gets a call that changes everything. A body has been found—tied to a wooden chair, crowned with deer antlers. The murder is strange. The setting, eerie. The village of Fleetcombe is quiet, but secrets ripple just below the surface.

In Death at the White Hart, Chris Chibnall, creator of Broadchurch and former Doctor Who showrunner, makes a confident and atmospheric fiction debut that’s part police procedural, part psychological puzzle, and completely engrossing.

A Detective Caught Between Past and Present

Nicola made her reputation fighting big-city organized crime in Liverpool, but in a desperate attempt to hold her marriage and family together, she’s come back home, only to find that the job she’s accepted is nothing like what was promised. She has half the staff she’d been expecting – exactly two officers, neither of them very promising – her headquarters is in a disused bank building, and the local police she thought she was joining has now been given a much larger three-county brief.

And now this: the dead body of a man, tied to a wooden chair, crowned by a full set of deer antlers.

The victim is Jim Tiernan, who ran one of the two pubs in town, The White Hart, and it isn’t long before Nicola figures out what everybody else in Fleetcombe knows:

“He knew all these people by name, he knew their lives and their lies, their secrets and delights, their joys and their shame, their finances and their addictions.”

Everybody knows something. Nobody tells her anything.

There’s Tiernan’s sister, Patricia, renting out her house as an Airbnb and washing out bloodstains from a sheet. There’s his lover, Irina, from Ukraine, who says she was out driving that night and slept in the car. There’s Christine, the woman who oversees the company that owns his pub and, thanks to tricky bookkeeping, has a good reason to be glad Tiernan is dead. There’s another lover, who is quite a surprise. There’s a farmer who seems to know an awful lot about the case. There’s a local hairdresser frantic to guard a secret. There’s a delivery man who may be delivering more than parcels.

And there’s a nine-year-old girl named Shannon, from a troubled home, who escapes to a playground late at night. No one sees her there, but she sees them, and she sees what they do.

For Nicola Bridge, it will be a case like no other, not even in the snake pit she left behind in Liverpool. She came back to Fleetcombe to save herself and her family. Instead, she has discovered ghosts, some from her past, some much older.

And they do not like to be awakened.

Death at the White Hart is an extraordinary debut novel, filled with atmosphere and layered mystery and characters that live and breathe and leap off the page. Nicola Bridge is a terrific addition to the investigative ranks, a professional of consummate skill who is also, she must admit, “a terrible detective of her life.” She has many surprises in store for her.

So do you.

No Stranger to Dorset Village Mysteries

Chris Chibnall is no stranger to Dorset village mysteries. He was the creator and writer of the beloved Broadchurch television series (and before that, a showrunner for Doctor Who), and himself lives in the Dorset town of Bridport.

“I’ve lived in West Dorset for 21 years now, and I love it: we’ve made our family home here. It’s a beautiful county, with a landscape that wears its ancient history on its sleeve – be that the Jurassic Coast or the Cerne Abbas Giant (look it up, if you don’t already know it). It’s got a great sense of community, and people are caring, witty and sharp. How people live here is how so many people across the UK (and I’m sure beyond) live. People really do know each other’s lives inside out. The pressures and demands and joys and tragedies are both specific and universal, which make it such a great setting for a novel.

“I’ve been trying to find time to write a novel for more than a decade now. When I finished my last TV job, I made a pledge to devote the time and thought to it. I knew I wanted it to be within the mystery genre – I love reading mysteries and have been a fan all my life – and I knew I wanted it to be set right now, in the world we’re living in today, in order to see how people’s lives in small communities are now playing out.

“It’s been thirteen years since I wrote the first season of Broadchurch. A lot has changed in that time. There’s been so much disruption in people’s lives, and I wanted to look at how all the assumptions (and institutions) we took for granted a decade ago are no longer guaranteed. What interested me was seeing how all this plays out on a local, daily level – for the delivery driver, for the person now running an Airbnb, even for a detective where the police are underfunded and under pressure. Big decisions are taken elsewhere, but it’s people in these communities who feel the consequences of those decisions on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour basis.

“It all came together around the idea of the classic British pub. They’re under threat right now, closing down at quite a rate. They’ve been part of the country for centuries (since 1393 – The White Hart is the second most popular British pub name, as it was the badge of King Richard II), but are now under threat. Those that are going to survive need to evolve. I felt that a pub at the heart of a village was a great crucible to explore all the things I was interested in. Plus, the pub is where people drink and laugh and confess all their secrets. It’s a great setting for a murder mystery.”

On Writing

As for the process of writing a book instead of a television show: “There are certain basics that are the same: how you build character, structuring backstory and narrative, how you reveal story, the need for propulsion and momentum. And cliffhangers! So my experience with those came in useful. But there’s also a lot that’s different – most notably interiority. One of the things I was most excited about in writing the novel was being inside characters’ heads, being able to tell the story through their thoughts and internal monologues. I’ve loved that aspect to it.

“As a writer, I think you’re always listening to people, storing up phrases or insights, or images, or plot twists. You’re absorbing all the time, whether you realize it or not. For this novel, it was about finding the voice of each character and then really listening to it. There’s a joy when characters start speaking to you, and you start feeling like you’re getting access to the mind and voice of each individual, really hearing what they think.”

Even though he was an experienced television writer, however, he knew there were no guarantees when it came to branching out to books:

“I definitely didn’t take it for granted that I’d be able to write a novel, or that anyone would be interested!  I started cautiously. I wrote a short three- page document first, to put down in words what I thought the novel would be about. Then I wrote the first ten or so chapters, really to see whether I could do it. I shared those with my agent, who shared them with a few publishers. I was pretty shocked when the pages got such a positive response. That was the point at which we met multiple publishers, I talked with them about the broader scope of the novel, and what I wanted to do with the book and potential subsequent books. I went with the publisher who gave me the best, toughest notes on the material they’d read so far.

“I was really clear that I wanted an editor who would hold me to account in making the novel the best it could be – I didn’t come in to this thinking that just because I’d written for the screen, I knew how to write a novel. I was really fortunate and grateful to have the guidance of two great editors – Joel Richardson at Penguin Michael Joseph in the UK, and Pam Dorman at Pamela Dorman Books/Viking. I loved working with them.

“It feels strange now that the novel is coming out – like a dream come true.” 

What Comes Next

He has plenty in mind for Nicola. First, to no surprise, the book will indeed also become a television show, written by Chibnall, for ITV – and hopefully for American audiences as well. Second, there is already another novel in the works for Nicola and her two colleagues, and those two have shown abilities that have surprised her, which they’ll need. With their new responsibilities covering Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall, it’s a very large area, with a whole range of places, communities, people, and potential crime.

And to top it all off, he’s also adapted Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery for Netflix, starring Martin Freeman, Helena Bonham Carter, and Mia McKenna-Bruce.

That’s a lot for us all to look forward to, but first: Death at the White Hart.

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Publish Date: 6/10/2025

Genre: Thrillers

Author: Chris Chibnall

Page Count: 352 pages

Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books

ISBN: 9780593831571