My first venture into crime fiction 'The Hungerbourne' is the opening book in a series of novels featuring Clare Hills and David Barbrook.

Alone and seeking direction after her husband’s death in a car accident Clare Hills quits London for the reassuring familiarity of the Wiltshire countryside. There she rekindles her friendship with David Barbrook, now an archaeology lecturer at their old university.

Both David and the Marlborough Downs seem seductively unchanged. But the destruction by arson of the finds from Gerald Hart’s famed Hungerbourne excavation makes the quiet downland village headline news; Gerald's death just weeks later brings to light even more shocking revelations.

Peter Hart’s decision to publish the work of his celebrated but reclusive uncle is an opportunity for David to re-launch his faded academic career. When David asks Clare to help him sort through Gerald’s records and she discovers the archive from his 60s dig hidden in the attic of the dilapidated Manor it seems like the discovery of a lifetime. But it quickly becomes clear the secrets of the dig have remained hidden for a reason: a priceless gold artefact is missing.

Clare embarks on a quest to track down the Bronze Age treasure and makes a grisly discovery that puts her at the centre of a murder inquiry. To the police and David, it’s an open and shut case – with Gerald the only suspect. The re-excavation of the Hungerbourne dig site provokes a chilling threat that suggests the murder is linked to the local legend of the ‘Woe Waters'.

And after Clare becomes the victim of an accident that leaves her clinging just inches from death she becomes determined to unmask the killer. Her investigations unearth a long-buried trail, of greed, obsession and murder. For in Hungerbourne it seems the past is never really past…

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My non-fiction writing, published as Nicola Snashall:

Allen, M & Snashall, N. 2009. New Features at Avebury From Hand Coring: Geoarchaeology in Action. In PAST Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society 63, 12-13.

Snashall, N. 2008. Worked Flint from the Longstones Cove and Beckhampton Avenue. In Gillings, M., Pollard, J., Wheatley, D. & Peterson, R. Landscape of the Megaliths: excavation and fieldwork on the Avebury monuments, 1997-2003. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Snashall, N. 2008. Worked Flint from Avenue Contexts. In Gillings, M., Pollard, J., Wheatley, D. & Peterson, R. Landscape of the Megaliths: excavation and fieldwork on the Avebury monuments, 1997-2003. Oxford: Oxbow Books

Snashall, N. 2008. In the Shadow of the Monuments. In Simmonds, S (ed.) Avebury World Heritage Site. Values and Voices. Kennet District Council.

Snashall, N. 2007. An Earlier Neolithic Site at Hackpen, Overton Hill, Avebury. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 100, 191-192.

Snashall, N. 2002. The Idea of Residence in the Neolithic Cotswolds. Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield (PhD Thesis).
Download a pdf copy from here.