Needle Song
Today I am pleased to be able to
participate in the blog tour for Needle
Song by Russell Day. My thanks go to Emma Welton @Damppebbles Blog Tours.
About the Book
Spending
the night with a beautiful woman would be a good alibi, if the body in the next
room wasn't her husband.
Doc
Slidesmith has a habit of knowing things he shouldn’t. He knows the woman Chris
Rudjer meets online is married. He knows the adult fun she’s looking for is
likely to be short lived. And when her husband’s killed, he knows Chris Rudjer
didn’t do it.
Only
trouble is the police disagree and no one wants to waste time investigating an
open and shut case.
No
one except Doc.
Using
lies, blackmail and a loaded pack of Tarot cards, Doc sets about looking for
the truth - but the more truth he finds, the less he thinks his friend is going
to like it.
Extract
Settle down and get comfortable as I have a sneaky extract from #NeedleSongBook
for you to tempt you even further.
The car stank of old food and
someone who’d only just stopped being a teenager. I gave the guy behind the
wheel my best don’t-fuck-with-me look. His mouth opened and closed a couple of
times but nothing came out. He found his voice as Doc opened the rear door and
climbed in.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He did his best to sound
outraged. He didn’t do it very well.
“That’s what we’re asking you,”
Doc told him. I could hear him smiling. This, more than the situation, made me
angry again. I wasn’t seeing the humour in any of this. “Now, why are you
following my friend Jan?”
“I got no idea what you’re
talking about.” He was trying hard to keep his head still, trying to keep
contact with Doc. Doing what he could to appear sincere. There was one of Doc’s
silences but it drew out nothing useful, the guy just repeated himself, “I
don’t know what you mean, I got no idea.”
“You just followed us around an
empty industrial estate, twice, then down a dead-end.” Doc shifted on the back
seat, moved into the driver’s personal space. “Why? Looking for some dogging
action?”
The driver giggled, either nerves
or an attempt to ingratiate himself. The silence in the car swallowed the sound
whole.
“Why are you following Jan
Keller?” Doc asked again.
The driver let out a sigh, he
sounded tired. Worn out tired, not bored. Doc was right about back to back
twelve-hour shifts, they’re a killer. Ask any nurse.
“I’m being paid to. Someone wants
to know what she gets up to, that’s all I can say.”
We waited but nothing else was
forth coming.
Doc said, “Who’s paying you?”
In the gloom, I saw the outline
of the driver’s head shake.
“I’m not saying anything else.
More than my job’s worth.”
I felt something inside me shift.
The anger had been there all day, since I’d seen Middle Age Gut snooping with
his mobile, but it had been aimless. Now it changed, became pointed. I reached
up to the roof light of the car and switched it on. The driver watched me. He
was still nervous, but now he had an air of defiance to him. Maybe deciding the
line he was going to take had made him feel in control.
I reached into a pocket of my
leather, pulled out the Stanley knife. I held it in front of me to make sure
he’d seen it then thumbed the blade open and thrust it toward him. He jerked
away and came to a stop pressed hard against the door pillar, then jammed his
head back into the seat rest as far as he could. He wound up with nowhere to go
and the tip of the blade just under the angle of his jaw. His head was craned
back so he was looking straight up to heaven. Eyes wide.
“Jesus Christ,” he squeaked.
We waited a moment. Jesus didn’t show, so we carried on
without him.
Wow what a sneaky peak and if you are anything like me, I now need to
know what happens next!! If the above
has tempted you, the links are below to enable you to buy from Amazon or the
publishers Fahrenheit Press.
About the Author
Russell Day was born in 1966
and grew up in Harlesden, NW10 – a geographic region searching for an alibi.
From an early age it was clear the only things he cared about were motorcycles,
tattoos and writing. At a later stage he added family life to his list of
interests and now lives with his wife and two children. He’s still in London,
but has moved south of the river for the milder climate.
Although he only writes crime
fiction Russ doesn’t consider his work restricted. ‘As long as there have been
people there has been crime, as long as there are people
there will be crime.’ That attitude leaves a lot of scope for
settings and characters. One of the first short stories he had published, The
Second Rat and the Automatic Nun, was a double-cross story set in a world where
the church had taken over policing. In his first novel, Needle Song, an
amateur detective employs logic, psychology and a loaded pack of tarot cards to
investigate a death.
Russ often tells people he
seldom smiles due to nerve damage, sustained when his jaw was broken. In fact,
this is a total fabrication and his family will tell you he’s has always been a
miserable bastard.
Social Media Links
To buy from:
Check out the rest of the blog
tour with these fabulous blogs:
My thanks to Russell Day for providing this exciting extract,
the publishers Farhenheit Press and
also Emma @ Damppebbles Blog Tours for my spot on
the blog tour.
No comments:
Post a Comment