Unseen Evil
Today I am pleased to be able to
participate in the blog tour for Unseen Evil by Liz Mistry. My thanks go to Sarah Hardy at Book
on the Bright Side for my spot on the blog tour.
About
the Book
New Release from
best-selling author Liz Mistry is number 6 in her D.I. Gus McGuire series.
Social Media can be the death of you …
The Snapchat
A twisted killer
comes to the attention of DI Gus McGuire and his team when a teenager receives
a Snapchat image of his murdered friend.
The Killer
As the killer
becomes bolder, using social media to publicise the murders, Gus fears there
may be more than one murderer targeting young people.
The Stalker
Meanwhile, Gus comes
under threat from a stalker who is not afraid to get up close and personal.
Can Gus protect his loved ones and catch the killer before another Snap is
received?
Extract
Today
I am pleased to be able to bring to you the Prologue from the new Gus McGuire
book Unseen Evil. I have had a bit of
reading slump of late and due to other issues going on have taken a bit of a
back seat from blogging. I am pleased to
say that I have started reading again and will be writing reviews for any book
I have read, however, I could not let this blog tour pass without taking part
one way or another. Now if like me you
are a big Gus McGuire fan but either a) haven’t got round to reading the book
yet, b) are unsure whether to buy it well I think this little snippet will persuade
you to do both.
PROLOGUE
March 2018
The Zodiac Club
e had to have a headquarters. Somewhere
we could meet. Somewhere we wouldn’t be seen and just by luck, while I was
exploring, I found it. An old grocer’s store on a side road. No For Sale
sign, no indication anyone was interested in it… Nothing. It was easy to get
in.
The front of the property faced a busy side street, but the
windows were covered by a metal shutter with Bradford City spray painted
on in black. Some smart-ass had crossed out the ‘C’ of City with a black marker
and replaced it with a ‘T’. How droll. I knew there was no way in from the
front, so I wandered around the back. It looked promising, so I waited until
dark and came back. Sure enough, the back of the shop had an enclosed yard with
a sturdy door which was hanging off its hinges. But, more importantly, the
properties behind it were also lying empty… apart from the druggies and tramps
that occupied them by night. It was easy to get the gate fixed and I knew just
the person to help me. A sturdy lock and we were sorted. Our own private space.
I love it. It’s well enough out of the way as to be discreet, but
not too far out of the way as to be difficult to get to. The headquarters we
call it… HQ. Nobody sees us coming and going because we’re invisible. Today’s
important. Today is the day we extend our manifesto… make more plans… finalise
things.
‘Neck it! Neck it! Neck it!’
Their chants are like hooligans at a football match as they loll
about on the carpet, sprawled over the cushions, intent on getting pissed. Leo,
dark eyes all sparkly, cheeks flushed, hands clapping in time with the chants,
is the most drunk. Pisces is a little less so… nervous, maybe? Picking those
oozing pussy spots and licking cracked lips – yuk, enough to make me want to
barf, but I cover it up… for now. Instead, I move my phone, taking in our
handiwork… all this will go down in history… saved for posterity. I smile a
little. I remember when I used to muddle that word with posterior… but that was
a long time ago.
The items pinned to the wall document the progress we’ve made. A
timeline of charts, newspaper clippings, photos… Each one evidence. Each one a
piece of the plan. Ambling round the room I zoom in on my favourites.
First there’s the list:
Sumaira Begum
Shannon Oyando
Billy Clark-Thompson
Becky Easton
Imran Sajid
Suki Singh
It’s so satisfying to see them all crossed out. Next there’s the
first lot of evidence… the photos. Sumaira Begum, when she found the bacon in
her locker… that was brilliant. She was hysterical… crying and yelling as if
someone was stuffing the rasher down her throat. It served her right telling Ms
Copley about me smoking in the girls’ toilets. The one of Shannon Oyando with
her tits out – ’cept they weren’t really hers – we’d photoshopped over hers,
printed them out, and stuck them up in the lads’ toilets.
The other two are still necking the voddie… Leo’s really flushed
now and Pisces, all bleeding pox and nervous eyes, is getting there too. I’ll
call the meeting to order in a bit, but for now, I record the last few items…
the newspaper clippings… Fame! I love the way we’ve moved on… the way we’ve
developed. Progress… you can’t whack it.
November 2017
Local Teacher Convicted of
Grooming Students
Craig Borthwick, a teacher at a
local secondary school, pictured here entering court, today received a ten-year
sentence after images showing him booking into a low budget hotel with a
fourteen-year-old student were anonymously uploaded to the Internet.
We did that! We made that happen. That snooty little bitch got
what she deserved when that picture of her snogging Mr Borthwick went viral.
That taught her. The way she dumped Leo, like a sack of hot potatoes, all the
time on her phone sexting that dirty old perv. Served her right… served him
right too.
All I can say after reading
that is thank goodness I have a copy of this book waiting on my kindle after
pre-ordering the same in readiness to read.
I can’t wait to start reading this in the next few months, once the back
to school routine has been finalised, my daughter is off to high school this
time so a new change is afoot and one which will involve certain changes around
the house, most importantly a reading hour which has been introduced in our
house to ensure that we can all wind down from our busy days and chill with no electronic
devices allowed and no TV on. All I can
say is it’s pure BLISS!!!
About
the Author
Born in Scotland, Made in Bradford
sums up Liz Mistry’s life. Over thirty years ago she moved from a small village
in West Lothian to Yorkshire to get her teaching degree. Once here, Liz fell in
love with three things; curries, the rich cultural diversity of the city … and
her Indian husband (not necessarily in this order). Now thirty years, three
children, two cats (Winky and Scumpy) and a huge extended family later, Liz
uses her experiences of living and working in the inner city to flavour her
writing. Her gritty crime fiction police procedural novels set in Bradford
embrace the city she describes as ‘Warm, Rich and Fearless’ whilst exploring
the darkness that lurks beneath.
Struggling with severe clinical
depression and anxiety for a large number of years, Liz often includes mental
health themes in her writing. She credits the MA in Creative Writing she took
at Leeds Trinity University with helping her find a way of using her writing to
navigate her ongoing mental health struggles. Being a debut novelist in her
fifties was something Liz had only dreamed of and she counts herself lucky,
whilst pinching herself regularly to make sure it’s all real. One of the nicest
things about being a published author is chatting with and responding to
readers’ feedback and Liz regularly does events at local libraries,
universities, literature festivals and open mics. She also teaches creative
writing too. Now, having nearly completed a PhD in Creative Writing focussing
on ‘the absence of the teen voice in adult crime fiction’ and ‘why expansive
narratives matter’, Liz is chock full of ideas to continue writing.
In her spare time, Liz loves pub
quizzes (although she admits to being rubbish at them), dancing (she does a
mean jig to Proud Mary – her opinion, not ratified by her family), visiting the
varied Yorkshire landscape, with Robin Hoods Bay being one of her favourite
coastal destinations, listening to music, reading and blogging about all things
crime fiction on her blog, The Crime Warp.
Social
Media Links
Check out the rest of the blog tour
with these fabulous blogs:
My thanks to Sarah Hardy at Book on The
Bright Side for my spot on the blog tour.
